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No. 5. 



How to Secure and %etain 



ATTENTION 



JAMES L. HUGHES, 

Inspector of Schools, Toronto, Canada; Author of 
" Mistakes in Teaching." 



A REVISED EDITION, WITH MUCH NEW MATERIAL. 

( JAAI-35 1888 rr I 



New York and Chicago: 

E. L KELLOGG & CO 

1887. 



v<«* 



Copyright, 1887, by 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., 

New York. 



PREFACE. 



" The teacher who fails to get the attention of his scholars, 
fails totally." This truth justifies the preparation of a teachers' 
hand-book dealing exclusively with the subject of Attention. 
Some teachers are gifted naturally with a high degree of power 
to gain and hold the attention of their pupils. All teachers may 
add to their power in this as in all other departments of their 
work. To help them to do so has been my object in issuing this 
book. 

The present edition has been very much enlarged, and some im- 
portant additions have been made to it. 

The edition of Messrs. E. L. Kellogg & Co. is the only author- 
ized edition published in the United States. 

J. L. H. 
Toronto, December 27, 1 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Preface, tii. 

Contents iv. 

Chap. I. General Principles, 3_8 

" II. Kinds of Attention, .... 9 — 20 

" III. Characteristics of Good Attention, . . 21 — 25 
IV. Conditions of Attention, .... 26—29 
" V. Essential Characteristics of the Teacher in 

securing and retaining Attention, . . 30 — 35 
" VI. How to Control a Class, .... 36—41 
" VII. Methods of stimulating and preserving the 

Desire for Knowledge, .... 42 — 49 
" VIII. How to Gratify and Develop the Natural 

Desire for Mental Activity, . . . 51—66 

IX. Distracting Attention, . . . . 67—69 

" X. Training the Power of Attention, . . 70 — 75 

" XI. General Suggestions regarding Attention, . 76 — 90 



THE READING CIRCLE LIBRARY. 

A new series of volumes of Circle size on Psychology in its 
Relation to Teaching, Principles of Teaching, Methods, History 
of Education, the Kindergarten, Physical Education, etc., for 
Teachers, Normal Schools, and Reading Circles. 



.50 
.50 
.50 
.50 
.30 



Allen's Mind Studies for Young Teachers. 

Froebel's Autobiography, etc. 

Hughes' Mistakes in Teaching . 

Hughes Securing and Retaining Attention. 

Wilhelm's Student's Calendar. 

Other volumes in preparation for immediate 

Published by 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., 

25 Clinton Place, N. Y. 



SECURING AND RETAINING 
ATTENTION. 



" The great skill of the teacher is to get and keep the atten- 
tion of his scholars." — Locke. 

" Genius is nothing but continued attention." — Helvetius. 

" There can be no teaching without attention." — Hart. 

"Without the faculty of perception all teaching, all machin- 
ery for communicating ideas to the young, are useless. They 
may have ears, and all the other organs of sense, but they will 
neither hear, nor see, nor perceive; for they will pay no atten- 
tion. " — Niemeyer. 

"Throughout the entire course of school training, the chief 
reliance of memory must be the freshness and force of attention 
both to things and words." — Swett. 

"Memory is the result of attention. The art of memory is the 
art of paying attention." — Payne. 

" Attention is perhaps the most important activity of the mind, 
since a mental fact only exists for us in so far as we attend to 
it." — Ryland. 

' ' In order to make progress in intellectual culture, habits of 
attention must be gained." — Calkins. 

" Mental power is, to a large extent, the power of attention." — 
Brooks. 

"Intensity of sensation, whether pleasing or not, is power." — 
Bain. 

" There is no distinct thinking, no vivid feeling, and no de- 
liberate action without attention." — Sully, 



4 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

Attention is the Direction of the Powers of the Mind 
to the Impressions Received through the Senses or to 
Subjects of Reflection. — A thousand impressions may 
knock for admission to our mind at once. We have the 
power of abstracting one of these from the mass and of 
examining it alone. This power of selecting one object 
or subject for special study is the basis of attention. 
When our eyes are open every object in front of us and 
within range of our vision makes a picture on the retina. 
We do not see all these pictures, however. We see only 
those of which the mind is cognisant. Seeing is the re- 
sult of mental action in specially looking at some of the 
images on the retina. I see those things which are 
strange to me, or of most interest to me, or what is most 
in harmony with my leading mental characteristics or 
tendencies. Ten individuals looking at the same land- 
scape from the same point of view see in it as many dif- 
ferent classes of objects. The painter recognizes its 
beautiful scenery, the geologist its formation, the bota- 
anist its flora, the sportsman its forests or streams, the 
farmer its fields of grain or pasture, and so on with the 
rest. But the pictures seen by the entire ten taken col- 
lectively do not constitute the sum of the images made 
on the eye of one individual. The same pictures are in 
each eye, but each mind chooses, or is attracted by a 
different set of pictures, or gets from the same picture a 
different series of impressions. The same individual 
sees different things in the same scene at different times, 
although the scene remains unchanged We may have 
sat in a room every day for months, without recognizing 
a certain pattern, or spot of color in the curtain or car- 



SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 5 

pet or wall-paper. Finally we notice it. Is it because 
the pattern or color has changed? Is it because its 
image is now made in our eyes for the first time ? No. 
The picture has been made on the retina every time we 
have sat in the room, but the mind has now for the first 
time recognized or examined it. It has appealed to us 
for months in vain, but at length we have noticed it, or 
given it our attention. An experienced designer would 
have seen it and recognized its relationship to its sur- 
roundings on his first visit to the room. 

It is also true of the other senses, that they carry a 
vast number of messages daily to the mind of which it 
takes no notice whatever. In a city many sounds reach 
our ears at the same instant, and we may not be con- 
scious of the fact at all. The noise of the factory, of the 
street-cars, of the locomotive engines, the whistling of 
steamboats, the cries of street vendors, and many other 
sounds may beat their tattoo on the drum of the ear, but 
the mind may be so fully engaged with other things as 
to be utterly unable to pay the slightest attention to 
them, and if so we will not hear them. The suffering 
body may even send its signals of warning to the brain, 
without arousing it to take action. 

Henry Clay was forced to speak on one occasion in re- 
ply to an opponent, when he was in very delicate health. 
Before rising he requested a friend who sat beside him 
to stop him at the end of twenty minutes. When the 
specified time had passed his friend pulled Mr. Clay's 
coat, but he continued to speak. His friend pinched 
him several times, and finally ran a pin into his leg. 
Mr. Clay paid no attention. He spoke for more than 



6 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

two hours, and then sank exhausted, and upbraided his 
friend for not giving him a signal to stop at the proper 
time. The signals had been given. His suffering body 
had sent repeated messages of alarm to the brain, but his 
mind was so completely occupied in attending to the 
subject he was discussing, that these messages had never 
been received. 

A wounded Prussian soldier whose foot had to be am- 
putated asked for his flute, and became so engrossed in 
the music he was performing that he did not seem to no- 
tice the operation of the surgeon, but continued to play 
without missing a note of the tune he was playing. 

It is a well-known fact that we may cease to be con- 
scious of physical suffering, if we can become engrossed 
in an interesting book, in the society of vivacious friends, 
in some delightful employment, or in any other way. 
Does the physical disturbance cease under these circum- 
stances ? Certainly not. The wounded or afflicted part 
sends its complaining messages of distress as regularly 
and as definitely as usual, but the mind is away from the 
pain telephone attending to other things. 

The conclusion we must reach from a careful consider- 
ation of these and similar illustrations is, that the mind 
may become so completaly absorbed in one sensation, or 
one subject, as to be totally unconscious of all other sen- 
sations or subjects. When it is so occupied it is giving 
undivided attention to the subject in hand. It is only 
then that the mind can do its best work in study or 
original investigation, so that the power to fix the ener- 
gies of the mind steadily on one subject is the most 
important intellectual power the teacher can ever develop 
in his pupils. 



SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. J 

Teachers have a specially difficult task in keeping the 
attention of a number of minds of varied tendencies en- 
gaged with the same subject. It would be much easier 
for them to give full attention to subjects of their own 
choosing, but the attention needed in the school-room 
requires the direction of the minds of all the pupils, to 
the subjects introduced by the teacher. 

Without attention nothing can be learned. We do 
not perceive unless we give attention. If we do not get 
perceptions we have no conceptions, and therefore no 
memory because we have nothing to remember. The 
more complete and prolonged our attention the more 
definite our perceptions, conceptions, and memory. 
Poor memories result from indistinct perceptions, and 
these come from inattention. Attention not only in- 
creases knowledge, it adds to our power of gaining 
knowledge. 

The teacher who cannot secure and retain attention 
must be a failure, whatever his other qualifications may 
be. Locke said: " Whilst the teacher has attention he 
is sure to advance as fast as the learner's ability will 
carry him; and without attention all his bustle and 
pother will be to little or no purpose." 

Each pt%)il must be willing to receive the thoughts his 
teacher has to communicate, and his mind must not be 
preoccupied, or actively engaged with other thoughts. 
He must for a time forget his personality, and turn from 
thoughts of his own plays and work and all that directly 
interests him outside the lesson. He must get out of his 
own current of thought and into that of his teacher. 

Active attention stands opposed to that rambling state 



8 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

of mind in which the thoughts move continually from 
one topic to another without dwelling upon any; and 
also to that apathetic and listless condition of the mind 
in which it is not conscious of thought; or in which 
ideas, if they exist, leave no trace in the memory. It is 
the kind of attention which a teacher must have from 
his pupils if he wishes to impress them. The teacher 
should ever remember that the minds of his scholars may 
be a thousand miles away, whilst their bodies may oc- 
cupy positions of reverent attention. 



KINDS OF ATTENTION. 



(tf\apttt XJL 

KINDS OF ATTENTION . 

In accordance with the motive which induces it, at- 
tention is either instinctive or controlled; accord- 
ing to the way in which it is exercised, it is either com- 
prehensive or discriminative, and according to the 
attitude of the mind it is either receptive, investiga- 
tive, or executive. With regard to the subjects in- 
vestigated attention is either external or internal. 

1. Instinctive Attention is the concentration of the 
powers of the mind on an object or a study because of 
its inherent attractiveness. We attend to many things 
without conscious effort, and may even do so in opposi- 
tion to our wishes. Those things which give us either 
pleasure or pain demand and receive our attention in 
proportion to the intensity of the interest they have for 
us. The little child gives attention because it is a de- 
light to do so. It attends to one thing until another be- 
comes more attractive. " Observation, attention, con- 
centration, last so long as enjoyment lasts and no 
longer." The mind of the little one flies like the bee 
from flower to flower, and it gets something every time 
it alights. The child does not pass from object to ob- 
ject for the sake of information, however, but on ac- 
count of the beauty and attractiveness of the objects 



IO SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

themselves. Nevertheless it gathers the knowledge 
more easily and more rapidly than it ever does after- 
wards, even when the acquisition of knowledge is its 
direct object. The child learns more between the ages 
of two and a half and four years than it does during any 
five years afterwards. He has learned a language, and 
speaks it correctly both as regards grammar and pronun- 
ciation, if he has listened to good speaking. He is in- 
timately acquainted with the worlds of nature and of 
art so far as he has come in contact with them. He 
knows the relations of things to each other and to him- 
self. He cannot explain, but he puts in practice, many 
of the principles of philosophy. He is even capable, to 
a far greater extent than he usually gets credit for, of 
estimating and appreciating the motives as well as the 
actions of the adults by whom he is surrounded. 

He could not have learned thus rapidly, if it had not 
been for the power of instinctive attention, the intensity 
of which in a child is so great as to require but a short 
time to gather ideas. Teachers will do well to note 
carefully, not only the marvellous rapidity with which 
knowledge is acquired in early years, but the distinct- 
ness and permanency of ideas received in the days of 
childhood. Many parents and teachers complain of the 
flightiness of children, and their lack of continuity in 
giving fixed attention to a subject. If they would only 
reflect, they would find that this tendency to pay atten- 
tion to whatever gives the highest degree of joy or pain 
is a characteristic of childhood impressed by our Crea- 
tor. The results already noted clearly prove that it is 
not necessary to give long-continued, so much as undi- 



KINDS OF A TTENTION. 1 1 

vided and oft-repeated attention to a subject in order to 
become acquainted with it. The clearness and perma- 
nency of ideas depends on the interest and intensity of 
attention rather than its continuance. If the best 
teachers could only succeed in making children learn 
one half as rapidly during school-days as they did in 
their homes or in the fields and woods before school life 
began, they would have great reason to congratulate 
themselves. 

Why do children not continue to manifest the same 
degree of interested or instinctive attention through life, 
that they showed in early years ? Is the change due to 
an altered mental nature, or is it caused by improper 
methods of teaching ? It is partly due to both causes, 
but mainly to the latter. Professor Payne says: "It is 
certain that there are processes of so-called education in 
vogue amongst us which, by the assiduous cultivation of 
mere rote memory, convert teaching into a mechanical 
grind of words, and thus defeat the very aim of true edu- 
cation, which is to store the mind with ideas, and only 
to recognize words as far as they minister to this end. 
The lamentable results of such methods, which make 
much provision for feeding and none for digestion, is to 
ruin irreparably the appetite for knowledge — the knowl- 
edge which consists in ideas, not words. Hence it is that 
we see children, who in their earliest years were dis- 
tinguished for mental ability transformed into dunces at 
school — a consequence obviously due to what is miscalled 
their education; for the number of children really stupid 
by nature is probably not at all greater than that of 
those born blind, or deaf and dumb. " 



12 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

There is one fundamental difference between the nat- 
ural method and the school method of teaching, which 
is worthy of careful thought by teachers. Before school 
the learning has not been the direct object aimed at. 
It has been incidental. The child was attracted by 
something, and he watched it, or handled it, or used it, 
in order to add to his happiness. He was not attending 
to lessons merely, but he learned them thoroughly, as 
the result of his doing. School work cannot all be done 
on this principle, but it should be done so as far as pos- 
sible. There will be enough "drudgery" under the 
most favorable circumstances to serve for mental dis- 
cipline. 

Froebel in his Kindergarten system has sought to util- 
ize the instinctive attention of children to the fullest 
extent. He recognizes the immense rapidity and value 
of the development of even the infant mind, and sets to 
work with the idea of systematizing the child's work 
without in any sense curtailing his enjoyment. He con- 
sequently brings him in contact with a carefully graded 
series of objects and occupations which are most at- 
tractive to him, and at the same time are admirably 
suited to the growth of his observant and reflective pow- 
ers. He also allows him to have ample opportunity for 
unrestrained but directed play. There *are some who, 
having merely glanced theoretically or practically at the 
surface of Kindergarten work, express the opinion that 
it is " only play." It is scarcely honest to give oracular 
decisions with such a small amount of investigation. 
There would not be much gold in the Kindergarten sys- 
tem, if a casual and unprofessional observer could find 



KINDS OF ATTENTION. 1 3 

it all in a few minutes. The truth is that the Kinder- 
garten system, by extending the period of instinctive, 
involuntary attention, has done a great deal towards the 
bridging over of the great . gulf between the home and 
the school. What is needed in addition is the strength- 
ening and completion of the bridge at its school end. 
In some subjects the principles underlying the Kinder- 
garten system should be carried out during the entire 
public school course. 

2. Controlled Attention is the attention given as the 
result of a conscious effort of the will. The teacher 
may secure this conscious direction of the mental pow- 
ers to a subject in two ways: by showing the pupils the 
advantages of study and thus convincing their judgment, 
or by coercive measures. The latter is of course the 
weaker plan in every respect, but if a pupil will not 
study from any other motive, compulsion should be used. 
The will of the child grows at first by submission to a 
superior will. Bain says: "The beginnings of knowl- 
edge are in activity or in pleasure, but the culminating 
point is in the power of attending to things in them- 
selves indifferent/'' It must not be forgotten that while 
instinctive or attracted attention is the most effective 
kind in gaining knowledge, controlled or directed atten- 
tion is of much greater importance as a mental discip- 
line. The study even of an important subject may be- 
come a source of mental weakness, if we study only that 
of which we are naturally fond. He who studies his- 
tory or science merely because he delights to do so gets 
much more knowledge but little more true discipline 



14 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

than he gets who reads novels because he delights in 
noyel reading. Our best growth results from training 
ourselves to do, up to our best standard of power, the 
things we are not predisposed to like. 

All studies cannot be made so attractive that students 
will prosecute them with ardor on account of the delight 
they afford. Different minds are fond of studying differ- 
ent subjects. As children grow older, therefore, they 
should be introduced gradually to those subjects which 
are less attractive. The mistake that is too often made 
in both public and Sunday schools is to expect young 
children to attend naturally to the teaching of subjects 
to which they are indifferent. To do this requires the ex- 
ercise of a will power which they do not possess. Dr. 
Carpenter expresses himself very clearly on this point. 
He says: " Those strong-minded teachers who object to 
these modes of ( making things pleasant ' as an unworthy 
and undesirable ( weakness ' are ignorant that in this 
stage of the child- mind the will, that is, the power of self- 
control, is weak, and that the primary object of educa- 
tion is to encourage and strengthen, not to repress, that 
power. . . To punish a child for the want of obedi- 
ience which it has not the power to render, is to inflict 
an injury which may almost be said to be irrepar- 
able." 

It will not do, on the other hand, to allow the child to 
grow up with the idea that none of the problems of life 
are in themselves uninviting. The teacher should fit 
his pupils for grappling with and mastering difficulties, 
even in what is distasteful. One of the most important 
of all the mental powers is the will ; and it must be 



KINDS OF ATTENTION. 1 5 

called into action in fixing the attention to these sub- 
jects that cannot be made attractive. " God has given 
us the power or capacity to direct the mind to any given 
object — that is, of directing, controlling, and in any 
way using the several mental faculties of which we are 
possessed: just as we have a like power over the various 
members of the body." Let this power be developed, 
but let the teacher carefully avoid depending upon com- 
pulsory attention as a substitute for good teaching. 

3. Comprehensive and Discriminative Attention. — The 

distinction between comprehensive and discriminative 
attention is an important one for teachers to make. 
Comprehensive, distributed, or inclusive attention looks 
at a complete whole ; discriminative, or individual, 
or concentrated attention examines a single unit. We 
may look at a whole landscape without distinguish- 
ing its particular parts so as to note the peculiarities of 
each tree, or hill, or house in it. We may look at a tree 
as a whole, without perceiving the special shape of each 
individual leaf, or even of a single leaf. We may look 
at a building without being conscious of its details in 
construction or ornamentation. We may inspect a shop 
window without seeing the fibre, or the pattern, or the 
lettering, or the price of the separate articles displayed 
in it. 

On the other hand we may look at a single tree or 
hill or house without seeing anything else in the land- 
scape ; we may note the shape of a single leaf without 
thinking about the tree to which it belongs ; we may 
count the windows or critically inspect the details of the 



1 6 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

ornamentation of a house ; or we may examine one by 
one the articles of a shop window in regard to shade, 
fibre, pattern, price, etc. 

The power of distinguishing between these two kinds 
of attention should be defined in the minds of pupils, and 
the conscious ability to give either kind at will should 
be well developed. It is clearly a defect in our educa- 
tional systems that they have failed to provide for the 
definite training of the power to give comprehensive 
attention so as to get in an instant a clear conception 
of the independent existence and the relationship of a 
considerable number of things. Such power may be 
developed and defined to a surprising degree, and when 
developed it has a great influence in qualifying a man 
for the higher enjoyment of the world of nature and art, 
and for a clearer realization of the problems by which he 
is surrounded in any department of life-work. 

Some writers claim that it is impossible to attend to 
more than one thing at a time. Sir William Hamilton 
says: " So far from consciousness not being competent to 
the cognizance of two things at once, it is only possible 
under that cognizance as a condition. For without dis- 
crimination there could be no consciousness; and dis- 
crimination necessarily supposes two terms to be discrim- 
inated." There can be no doubt about the power of 
seeing more than one thing at the same instant. One 
can look down a street and distinguish a number of 
houses at the same moment. One can easily see a dozen 
knobs on the front of a chest of drawers, and be conscious 
of the fact that there are a dozen of them. The experienc- 
ed man counts coins by fives or sixes, grouping them ac- 



KINDS OF ATTENTION. 1 7 

curately with his eye. Of course it is quite true that the 
more objects we bring within the range of our attention 
at a time the more indefinite our attention to each one. 
Teachers need a special training in the power of giv- 
ing comprehensive attention, in order to be able to see 
every individual in their classes at the same instant. 
The watchful teacher is not the one who nervously 
sweeps his eye around the room, but he who calmly 
opens his eyes and has his mind so trained that it can 
and does look at every pupil at once. In doing so a 
teacher cannot distinguish the features of his pupils as 
individuals, but he can note the slightest movement of 
the hand or the head, and when such a motion indicates 
that anything is wrong he should convert his compre- 
hensive or distributed attention into concentrated atten- 
tion. A teacher who can do this will have little trouble 
in maintaining order. 

4. Receptive, Investigative, and Executive Attention. 
— The pupil's mind is aroused to receptive attention 
when he is receiving knowledge communicated by the 
teacher. 

When a pupil examines or "searches independently in 
order to gain knowledge, his attention is investigative. 

When a pupil is doing something that he understands 
how to do, his attention is executive. 

Receptive attention is the least intense and therefore 
the least productive kind of attention, because receptiv- 
ity is the most passive condition of the mind in learn- 
ing. 

Investigative attention requires positive effort on the 



1 8 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

part of the pupil. A student may investigate objects to 
make discoveries for himself, or he may examine books 
to learn the discoveries made by other men. The joy of 
discovery is greater than the pleasure of gathering knowl- 
edge. We are most interested in what gives us most 
happiness. The extent of our interest decides the char- 
acter of our attention. Therefore, it is easier to arouse 
attention to the investigation of objects, than to the 
study of books. It does not follow, because children 
are more interested in things than in books, that there- 
fore they should not be trained to study books. The 
power to search for and find knowledge, as stored in 
books, may be trained. It increases as it is used. 
From the earliest period of the child*s experience in 
reading, he should receive systematic training in " dig- 
ging for thought" in written or printed matter. The 
process of learning to read may be divided into four 
parts : 

1. Convincing the child that the language he has 
been accustomed to use may be represented in visible 
form. 

2. Training in word-recognition. 

3. Extracting thought from written or printed matter. 

4. Expressing thought clearly in oral reading. 

The third stage, although vastly more important than 
any of the others, generally receive very little attention. 
The most humiliating charge that can be truthfully made 
against the intellectual training of schools, is that men 
and women do not definitely search for truth after they 
leave school. It is scarcely reasonable to expect them 
to be interested in the mines of knowledge, when they 



KINDS OF ATTENTION. 1 9 

have never been taught how to dig in them. A wise 
teacher regularly arouses the curiosity of his pupils in 
regard to questions of practical, commercial, historical, 
or scientific importance in order to lead them to search 
the books at their disposal for satisfactory answers and 
explanations. We are too much disposed to over-esti- 
mate the importance of investigations in regard to things, 
and to undervalue the power of independent study of 
books. 

Executive attention is the most definite and the 
most developing kind of attention. The mind may be 
stimulated to activity either, in regard to external things, 
or in dealing with the conceptions already formed. 
However we may be occupied in using knowledge, our 
attention may then be more fully engrossed than at any 
other time. The most complete concentration of atten- 
tion possible is secured when giving executive attention 
under the stimulus of competition of some kind. 

5. External and Internal Attention. — We may attend 
to things or their parts, to the world around us, its 
sights, sounds, etc. ; or we may attend to the ideas al- 
ready in the mind. We may attend to perceptions or to 
conceptions. The wise teacher makes his pupils gain 
his conceptions in the only way they can be formed 
definitely, by independent self-examination of external 
objects; but many teachers cripple their pupils mentally 
by confining their intellectual operations to external 
things after definite conceptions have been formed in 
their minds. The child should learn that 7 and 5 make 
12 by using actual things, slats, pegs, beans, etc., but 



20 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

he should not use these aids to his mind a moment 
longer than is necessary to give him a clear conception 
of the fact to be learned. He should neet deal with the 
figures 7 and 5, the representations of the slats, or pegs, 
or beans he used, and as soon as possible he should per- 
form the operation mentally. Far too much arithmetic 
is done on slate or paper. Objects are invaluable in 
giving clear conceptions, but they are dead weights that 
prevent the mind from working, when it begins to apply 
these conceptions. 



CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD ATTENTION. 21 



CH^^ACTBTilSTICS OF GOOT> zATTH^TIOd^. 

1. Attention in Study should be Undivided. — It is 

possible to give attention to two things at once, but the 
attention given to one of them is taken from the other, 
and so indefinite conceptions are received of both. It is 
one of the highest duties which a teacher owes to his 
pupils to train them to be able to fix their undivided 
attention on one subject. The extent to which a man 
can rivet his attention, and control the working of his 
own mind, decides the standard of his intellectual power. 
The force of a stream becomes resistless as its channel 
becomes restricted. The genial rays of the sun when 
brought to a focus have intense burning power. The 
mind which admits various subjects at the same time, 
and as a result becomes confused and full of but indis- 
tinct ideas, might, if all its energies were directed to the 
investigation of only one subject, mount with majestic 
tread from height to height in original investigation. 
Napoleon said : " I am able to despatch a marvellous 
amount of work, because with all the powers of my mind 
I attend to one thing at a time." "My golden rule," 
said Dickens, " has been to devote myself completely to 
whatever I tried to do." Locke says: " It should there- 
fore be the skill and art of the teacher to clear the heads 



22 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

of children of all other thoughts while they are learning 
anything, the better to make room for what he would 
instil into them, that it may be received with attention 
and application, without which it leaves no impression." 
It is a difficult matter, however, even for adults to 
concentrate their attention on the one subject in hand. 
How often the thoughts which we hear expressed, or 
which we read, make no deeper impressions on our 
minds than the " shadows of the passing clouds do upon 
a landscape." A teacher should be patient when he 
finds some active-brained boy or girl is in "wonder- 
land," when he is supposed to be revelling in the 
delights of complex fractions. It is often injurious 
to a very young child to startle it from its reveries. 
Mental links may thus be broken which will never be 
reunited. This remark should, however, be noted by 
parents and teachers of individuals, rather than by 
teachers of classes. 

2. Attention should be Intense. — The permanency of 
impressions made upon the mind by the teacher or by 
circumstances depends upon the intensity of the atten- 
tion given. Some events have burned their impress 
upon the tablets of our memory, so that they can never 
be forgotten. It matters not whether the circumstances 
have caused intense joy or pain, — if the sensations they 
caused have been acute, their remembrance remains 
vivid. There are few who would not forget some 
things, if they could. Alice Cary in her beautiful 
poem, "An Order for a Picture," touches a common 
chord when she makes the full-grown man appeal to the 



CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD ATTENTION. 23 

painter pleadingly to paint his mother's face without 
the look of " reproachful woe" he saw in it when he 
told her the first untruth : 

" But O, that look of reproachful woe! 
High as the heavens your name I'll shout, 
If you paint me the picture and leave that out." 

Why is it that we cannot forget some things ? Simply 
because they interested us so much. We admire the 
beautiful flowers which bloom around our pathway as 
we ramble in the woods or garden in the early summer- 
time. We perchance may gather bouquets of those we 
deem most exquisitely beautiful. A month afterwards 
we may not remember the varieties we collected or the 
precise localities in the woods or garden from which we 
plucked them. Let a companion who has roused in us 
a strong, deep feeling, either of love or respect, pick and 
present one blossom to us, and we remember exactly its 
hues and shape, as well as the very spot on which the 
presentation took place. How clearly we remember the 
impressions of our first day at school ! How *our whole 
mental nature was aroused to note the peculiarities of 
our strange position, and the novelties of our surround- 
ings ! Our memories were deeply marked because our 
attention was so intense. If a member of our family 
ever met with a painful accident or was suddenly ex- 
posed to great danger in our presence, how vividly we 
recall the circumstances. There are two ways of fixing 
facts in the mind so definitely that they can be recalled 
with precision. One is by repeating a feeble impression 
until it becomes strong and clear. The other is by giv- 
ing such intense attention as will at once make deep and 



24 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

lasting impressions. Instinctive or attracted attention 
is naturally more intense than controlled or voluntary 
attention, and therefore so far as learning, not discip- 
line of the mind, is concerned, instinctive attention is 
the kind that should be aroused. 

Teachers should strive to secure a large degree of in- 
tensity of attention on the part of their pupils. This 
may not be possible in every part of every lesson, but 
there should at least be some part of every lesson which 
will arrest the involuntary attention of every pupil. If 
only one flower be clearly pictured in the memory, that 
one serves to recall the ramble and its pleasures. If 
some salient or culminating point in a lesson be illus- 
trated, or presented in an impressive or even startling 
manner so as to fix the attention on it, it will form a 
magnet around which the other facts taught will group 
themselves. Bain says: " Intensity of sensation whether 
pleasing or not is a power." 

3. Attention should be Investigating. — The mental 
attitude should not be passive but active. The mind 
should be vigorously and consciously aggressive in its 
search for truth. Knowledge should be sought after, 
not merely taken as it comes to us or is forced upon us. 
We should study because of a craving for more clear 
conceptions of truth and new revelations of it. We all 
have a desire for knowledge naturally. Proper educa- 
tion should make this desire grow stronger throughout 
our whole lives. 

4. Attention should be Sustained. — Startling a class to 
make them attend is not a wise course. Some teachers 



CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD ATTENTION. 2$ 

try an explosive method of securing attention. They 
first helplessly allow the class to drift into a state of 
disorder and confusion, and then, suddenly, comes a 
thunderclap ; they strike the desk violently with a 
ruler, or stamp heavily on the floor. Attention may 
be gained in such a way, but such attention will be 
given to the teacher himself or to the noise he makes, 
and will even then be only of a temporary kind. The 
noise of the pupils yields for a time, but very soon it re- 
asserts itself. Attention to be valuable must be steady. 
Sir Isaac Newton said: "Because I have acquired the 
power of intense and prolonged attention, I am able to 
accomplish what others fail to do." The receptive con- 
dition is increased ten-fold by the power to give un- 
divided, intense, investigating attention to one subject 
for a considerable time. If attention is not continued 
beyond the fatigue point, the mind increases in its 
sympathic receptivity to a subject the longer that sub- 
ject retains undisputed sway in the mind. The re- 
flective power, the productive condition of the mind is 
quickened and strengthened even more than the recep- 
tive condition, by sustained attention to one subject of 
thought. The man who can really exclude all but one 
subject from his mind for an hour, will be astounded at 
the increasing volume of thought that comes to him 
regarding the subject of meditation, if his body and 
mind are in a healthy condition. Teachers should, of 
course, never forget that giving intense attention is an 
exhaustive exercise, and that relaxation in some form — 
music, free gymnastics, or both combined — should be 
given to pupils at frequent intervals. 



26 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 



<£fjapttr FfcX- 

CONDITIONS OF ATTEV^TIO^. 

1. Physical Requisites. — 1. The room must be 
lighted. Children cannot be bright and happy in a 
room that is insufficiently or badly lighted. The light 
should never come from the front or the right of pupils. 
It is best when admitted only from the left, but a left 
and rear light is admissible. All windows should reach 
well up towards the ceiling, and they should not extend 
too low down. It is better to have all the light admitted 
above the level of the eye. 

2. The room must be properly ventilated. Unless it is 
so, the health of the children is injuriously affected, and 
their spirits are depressed, and it becomes impossible to 
give either intense or sustained attention to a subject. 
A congregation speedily becomes drowsy in a poorly 
ventilated church, and children gradually becomes 
lethargic in a badly ventilated school-room. 

3. The temperature must be regulated. Pupils cannot 
be quiet and studious when their toes and fingers are 
cold. They become tired and indolent if the tempera- 
ture rises too high. Cold feet and hot heads at the same 
time are bad for the health in many respects. The 
normal temperature is about 65 degrees. 

4. The pupils must be seated comfortably. The es- 
sentials for comfort are: 



CONDITIONS OF ATTENTION. 2J 

a. The seats must not be too high. 

b. The backs should fit the pupils' spinal curvature. 

c. The seats and desks should relatively correspond 
in height. 

d. The seats should be as close as possible to the desk, 
so that the backs of the pupils may be supported while 
they are at work. 

A child's feet should rest on the floor, so that no part 
of the weight of the leg is borne by the thigh-bone. 
Many seats have the backs too high, others are too low. 
Either arrangement causes suffering to the children who 
sit on such seats. 

5. Children sliould be allotved to change their posture 
frequently. The body tires sooner than the mind. 
Even if supplied with comfortable' seats, remaining in 
one position too long causes injury to the body, and 
compels the withdrawal of the mind from the lesson, to 
note the necessities of physical comfort. 

If the teacher notices his pupils unusually restless 
and inattentive, he should allow them to spend a short 
time in some simple physical exercises. Even standing 
up and sitting down will aid in removing listlessness 
and the inattention resulting from nervous restlessness. 
Exercises should always, if possible, be performed in time 
with music. They then form the most powerful and, 
what is of more importance, the most natural external 
disciplinary agent a teacher can employ. 

2. Good Classification. — Proper classification promotes 
attention in two ways. Unless the pupils in a class are 
graded according to their attainments, the subjects and 
methods adapted to the advancement and capabilities of 



28 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

one portion will be.quite unsaited to the other. It is 
comparatively useless to try to steer a middle course. 
The more advanced will not give good attention because 
they think they are acquainted with the subject already, 
the more backward will usually fail to give close atten- 
tion from sheer inability to keep up and clearly compre- 
hend the teaching. Judicious grading also enables the 
teacher to secure a proper alternation of lessons on the 
programme of study, and to carry out the time-table 
without waste of time. 

3. Good Order. — Order is an essential preliminary 
step in securing and retaining attention. Attention 
cannot be concentrated and intense, except under favor- 
able circumstances.* Disorder, unnecessary movement, 
bustle, confusion, and even faint whispering, distracts 
the attention. Those who talk must themselves be in- 
attentive, and they prevent attention on the part of those 
to whom they speak. A recent American writer says: 
"Silence is the basis for the culture of internality or 
reflection — the soil in which thought grows. It allows 
the repose of the senses and the awakening of insight 
and reflection. In our schools this is carried further 
than merely negative silence, and the pupil is taught the 
difficult but essential habit of absorption in his proper 
task even when a lively recitation is going on with an- 
other class. He must acquire the strength of mind (of 
internality) which will enable him to pursue without 
distraction his train of thought and study, under any 
external conditions. Out of this discipline grow atten- 
tion, memory, thought — the three factors of theoretic 
culture. " 



CONDITIONS OF ATTENTION. 2$ 

The teacher must carefully guard against the mistake 
of supposing that order and attention are equivalent. 
A class may be very orderly, and at the same time in a 
state of mental inactivity. Order and attention are quite 
distinct, but closely related to each other. Order is in- 
dispensable in securing attention ; attention is absolutely 
requisite in maintaining order. 

4. Full Control. — While order should be maintained 
by giving the pupils plenty of work to engage their at- 
tention, it frequently becomes necessary to secure it by 
direct controlling power. To influence his pupils prop- 
erly a teacher must first learn to control them. In 
teaching them to apply themselves to the study of sub- 
jects "indifferent," or uninteresting, in forming habits 
of attention for benefit rather than pleasure, and in 
developing the will power of pupils, the teacher's mind 
must assume not only a guiding but a governing func- 
tion. It is of course true that the minds of the pupils 
may influence that of the teacher, but the extent to 
which this is true depends almost entirely on the teacher 
himself. Four things settle the question of mental con- 
trol between the teacher and the taught: 

1. The natural strength of a teacher's mind. 

2. His force of character. 

3. The interest he takes in his work. 

4. The clearness of his conception of the subjects he 
desires to teach. 

The weak, careless, indolent teacher, who has not 
thoroughly prepared the special lesson he has to teach, 
will not be a controlling power to a very large extent. 



30 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 



ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS'OF THE TEACHER 
IN SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

1. Cheerfulness. — Unless the teacher be cheerful and 
kind in manner he cannot secure the sympathy of his 
pupils thoroughly, and without sympathy he cannot ob- 
tain proper attention. The pupils insensibly associate the 
teacher with the subjects taught, and unless attracted 
by the former they are not likely to be interested in the 
latter. 

We like cheerfulness in others and they like it in 
us. A teacher with a second-class certificate, who has 
good health and a sunny disposition, will do much 
grander work for her pupils mentally and morally than 
a teacher with a first-class certificate, who has ex- 
hausted her nervous system and injured her digestion 
by overworking, in order to win her certificate. Irrita- 
bility in the teacher naturally causes dislike for school 
and study on the part of the pupils. The teacher must 
be attractive. Sunshine promotes growth, character 
sunshine develops sympathy and consequent attention. 

2. Earnestness. — The teacher's manner will influence 
his pupils for good more than his precepts or advice. 
They may laugh at his logic, they cannot resist his 



ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TEACHER. 3 1 

personal power. If a man is not in earnest his pupils 
will not be zealous. He justifies inattention, if he does 
not speak and act in such a way as to show that he re- 
gards his teaching to be of great importance. 

3. Enthusiasm. — Enthusiasm is well-directed energy, 
not mere excitement or assumed animation. Enthusiasm 
must spring from a genuine, fervent desire for the 
accomplishment of a well-understood purpose. Enthu- 
siasm in teaching must grow from a love for the work, 
a thorough acquaintance with the subjects to be taught, 
and a deep conviction of the great value of education 
in forming the characters and securing the success of 
his pupils. Some one says, "Enthusiastic men are 
narrow/'' Perhaps they are to a certain extent, but 
narrowing a man's energies to his legitimate work is the 
most essential foundation for his success. The teacher 
should widen his mental range, and concentrate his 
energies and his emotional nature. " Enthusiasm is 
not a reckless zeal without knowledge ; neither is it 
that overplus of feeling or action that overdoes the 
work, but undoes the worker. But it does consist in 
the combination of a high appreciation of the impor- 
tance of your work, and a hearty zeal in the accomplish- 
ment of that work. Fanaticism is zeal without knowl- 
edge ; indifference is no zeal whatever; enthusiasm is 
a zeal tempered by prudence, modified by knowledge. 
Indifference chills ; enthusiasm warms and quickens. 
A teacher without enthusiasm has no right to be a 
teacher. He cannot be one in the truest and broadest 
sense without it." Enthusiasm is contagious. When a 



32 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

teacher's attention to a subject is so complete that he 
becomes enthusiastic,, his enthusiasm reproduces its first 
cause by arresting and fixing the attention of the class. 

4. Quietness. — Some teachers act as though noise and 
bustle were equivalent to energy and enthusiasm. The 
mighty Corliss engine in Machinery Hall,, at the Cen- 
tennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876, made less 
noise than almost any of the hundreds of machines 
which it set in motion. So in the schoolroom, the 
teacher should be the great motive power, mighty with- 
out being noisy, which sets the human machines around 
him to work for themselves. " Noise and emptiness 
often travel together." Noisy teachers make noisy 
pupils. Some teachers are so noisy and demonstrative 
that they attract attention to themselves and not to the 
subjects they are teaching. If teachers speak in a loud 
tone, and in a high key, their pupils cannot listen to 
them long. Inattention and consequent disorder al- 
ways mark the classes taught by piping teachers 

5. Decision. — The teacher's every act, look, and tone 
should clearly indicate decision. He must wear the 
dignity of his superior position as though it fitted him 
well. He must understand himself and his subjects. 
There must be no assumption in his bearing. There is 
a magnetic force connected with a man who has definite- 
ness of aim and deliberation in action. The power of 
such a man is irresistible in its influence over those with 
whom he comes in contact. This is true even when they 
are of his own age ; it is true to a greater extent when 



ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TEACHER. 33 

they are his juniors. It is necessary for a teacher to 
have this power in order to develop controlled attention. 

6. Power to Control. — Control is a necessary element 
in securing attention. The most perfect control can 
secure only passive attention, but this is an essential con- 
dition of positive attention. The teacher should have 
no difficulty in convincing his class that some one person 
must be the controlling power in the school, and that his 
age, experience, and developed force of character emi- 
nently fit him for the position of unchallenged leader. 

7. Will Power. — There is no longer any doubt about 
the possibility of a strong mind influencing a weaker 
mind, if the weaker is not consciously resistful. This 
fact in mental philosophy should make it clear that a 
strong, definite teacher should be able to secure an at- 
tentive attitude on the part of his pupils by the directing 
influence of his will on theirs. This is especially true of 
teachers whose pupils are in sympathy with them, and 
who are therefore responsive to the will which they rec- 
ognize as superior to their own. A teacher should have 
force of character sufficient to lead him to determine to 
have the order and attention essential to study on the 
part of the class ; and such a determination indicated in 
a calm, kindly, but positive way will always secure ready 
obedience and cooperation. 

8. Power to arouse and maintain Interest. — The teacher 
must not be too wordy. Fluency often drowns thought. 
Pupils will not exercise their minds, if the teacher does 



34 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

their thinking for them. The best way to make a sub- 
ject interesting and attractive is to set the pupils to 
work at making discoveries concerning it. The won- 
drous caves and marvellous treasures of knowledge may 
be opened and pointed out by the teacher, but they 
should be investigated by the pupils themselves. The 
joy of victory in overcoming some new difficulty, in 
mastering a hard problem, or in making even a trifling 
discovery, is a delight that thrills the entire intellectual 
nature of a child, and it forms one of the strongest 
motives to induce increased attention. In some way, 
however, the interest must be . kept up, and as far 
as possible the subjects taught should be made at- 
tractive in themselves, without reference to the benefits 
they confer. As has been explained already, the per- 
manency of impressions depends upon the intensity of 
the attention given ; it is equally true that intensity of 
attention depends upon the interest taken in the subject 
itself. 

9. Patience. — The petulant haste of the teacher does 
not influence the minds of children to greater concentra- 
tion of effort. On the contrary, it excites a feverish and 
disturbed condition of mind that in most cases prevents 
concentration. The most profound philosopher could 
not think clearly, if some being, whom he feared as 
much as the child fears an angry teacher, were dancing, 
and gesticulating, and scolding, and perhaps shaking him 
as an impatient teacher sometimes does a pupil. The 
thunder method may arrest the wandering attention of 
a listless dreamer, but it is the weakest and most in- 



ESSENTIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF TEACHER. 35 

jurious method of doing even this. In dealing with dull 
pupils the developed mind of the teacher will forget the 
difficulties a child has in dealing with conceptions that 
can yet be only indefinite and unclassified in its mind, 
and the more enthusiastic the teacher is the more diffi- 
cult will it be for him to be patient. He does a gross 
wrong to the child, however, if he becomes irritable and 
distracts its attention by chiding it. The mind must be 
allowed to flow in one direction to do its best work. The 
channel should be narrowed to increase the power of the 
current. Impatient threatening by the teacher either 
stops the current of the mind altogether, or dissipates 
its attention, as a gale blows water into foam and spray. 



36 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 



Adapter TX 

HOW TO CONTROL *4 CLASS. 

It is clear from what has already been said that gain- 
ing control is a totally different matter from securing 
attention. Attention includes control, however, and it 
is therefore necessary that a teacher should control his 
pupils as a basis for obtaining attention from them. 
This he may do as follows : 

1. By Standing or Sitting so as to See his Whole 
Class. — If a pupil feels that his teacher's eye is con- 
stantly and quietly taking note of all that is going on in 
his class, he cannot fail to be conscious of its controlling 
power. Unless he is defiant or exceedingly thoughtless 
he will need little more than the teacher's untiring eye 
to restrain him. The only pupils who resist control by 
the eye are the rebels. They are always very few in 
number unless the teacher is outrageously unjust and 
arbitrary. In dealing with rebels the combined author- 
ity of teacher, parents, and trustees should be enforced 
in order to teach them one of the most important les- 
sons they can ever learn : a due respect for law, and 
prompt submission to it. The eye can be cultivated 
and its range of vision greatly widened. Few teachers 
have the power to see and watch every pupil in a class 



HOW TO CONTROL A CLASS. tf 

of fifty at the same instant, but every teacher may ac- 
quire the ability to do so. It is astonishing to what ex- 
tent clearness of lateral vision may be developed, with- 
out rolling the eyes from side to side. The teacher must 
learn to give comprehensive, as distinguished from con- 
centrative, or discriminative attention. An easy, nor- 
vous movement of the eyes, or a fixed stare, neutralizes 
the influence they might exert. The seeing should be 
done without any apparent effort, but it should be done, 
and done unerringly. Even when using the blackboard 
the teacher should avoid turning his back to his class. 
" The eye has a magic power. It wins, it fascinates, it 
guides, it rewards, it punishes, it controls. You must 
learn how to see every child all the time." 

2. Inattention Must be Noticed and Checked in Time. 
— It is an epidemic, which may be easily controlled in its 
incipient stage. The fire that sweeps away in a breath 
the proudest structures of a mighty city might have 
been quenched with a few drops of water. It is mad- 
ness to allow a wave of disorder to roll on and on until 
it has engulfed a whole class, and then attempt to break 
its force by a counter-disorder of greater violence. " A 
stitch in time saves nine" is as true in school as in other 
places. The inattention of one pupil in a large class, 
if of such a negative character as not to distract the at- 
tention of others, sometimes may be allowed to pass un- 
checked. It may cost too much to secure the attention 
of such a pupil. The whole class may be diverted from 
the subject under consideration in doing so, and a posi- 
tive evil substituted for a negative. The class should 



38 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

not be sacrificed for the individual. He may be in- 
formed at the close of the lesson, or before passing to a 
new line of thought, that his negligence has been no- 
ticed. This will soon cure him, and it will at the same 
time impress the rest of the class with the idea that the 
teacher regards their attention as of such vital impor- 
tance as to avoid allowing anything unnecessarily to in- 
terrupt it. They will learn the importance of giving 
attention from his actions and manner more clearly 
than from his words. But as soon as passive inattention 
develops into the first symptons of disorder, action must 
be taken instantly. How should this action be taken ? 
In the quietest possible manner, The cure of the af- 
fected portion should be made without injury to any 
other part. If the teacher's object is to startle the whole 
class and completely dissipate their attention from the 
subject in hand, he should scold the offender or strike 
the desk, or stamp on the floor, or snappishly demand 
"attention." If he wishes to gain the attention of the 
careless pupil without allowing any one else to know that 
he has been inattentive, he can usually do so in one of 
the following ways: 

1. By briefly pausing in the lesson. 

2. By a quiet movement of the hand or head. 

3. By a significant glance. 

4. By giving a question to the wandering one. 

With a fair degree of tact the remedy may be applied 
without loss of time to any but the pupil immediately 
concerned. 

It is very desirable that the class should be saved from 
interruptions by the teacher himself. The interruptions 



HOW TO CONTROL A CLASS. 39 

referred to are the worst possible, for they not only 
cause loss of time and distraction of attention, but they 
lead the whole class to believe that inattention is a very 
common, and therefore not a very grave, offence. 

3. By Calm, Fixed, Fearless, Determined, Patient 
"Will Power." — Every teacher should exercise "will 
power" in relation to his class. It should never be ex- 
ercised haughtily or tyrannically, but always kindly and 
naturally. Wilfulness and self-will are very different 
from "will power." "Will power" simply means the 
ability to proceed undeviatingly to a desired end, and 
bring others along with you. The following are the 
characteristics which "will power" should possess: 

1. It should be calm. Obedience on any terms is 
better than disobedience, but willing obedience must be 
secured by the teacher if he wishes to benefit his pupils. 
If " will power" is exerted in a noisy or violent manner 
it is offensive; if it is of a fussy kind it excites ridicule. 
It must be calm if it would secure control, beneath the 
placid surface of which no rebellion lurks in ambush. 
The teacher in exercising his controlling functions rep- 
resents the majesty of law. So long as he acts judic- 
iously his decisions rest on absolute authority, There 
can be no need for haste or excitement in his applica- 
tion of disciplinary agencies of any kind. Authority is 
most majestic and awe-inspiring when it is exercised in 
a dignified way. 

2. It should be fixed. Some teachers are intermittent 
in their exercise of " will power." They are fully 
charged with energy and force one day, but seem to 



40 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

have lost connection with their character batteries on 
the next. Steady, even, regular, uniform control is the 
kind required. In the schoolroom and in the yard the 
teacher's influence should be supreme, whether he is 
present or absent. He must never be a tyrant, he 
should always be a governor. 

3. It should be fearless. No one can control a pupil 
if he fears him or his parents. The teacher should care- 
fully study his proper social and legal relationship to the 
pupils, their parents, and the school authorities. He 
should stand on a foundation of solid rock, and be ready 
for prompt action in cases of emergency. Promptness 
and deliberation should go hand in hand. Promptitude 
and haste or excitement are not synonymous. Hesita- 
tion and timidity on the part of a teacher often stir to 
life germs of rebellion which might otherwise have been 
left to die for lack of nutriment. 

4. It should be determined. While a teacher should 
always pay due respect and attention to the advice of 
friends, he should never allow either the counsel of his 
friends or the opposition of foes to make him deviate 
from the course which he knows to be the right and just 
one. Many men fail because when a wave of opposition 
meets them they feebly yield to its power and aimlessly 
drift with it; when if they had met it bravely and re- 
mained firm it would soon have passed them and left 
them better for its washing. The teacher may yield 
many times with profit to his school and to himself if he 
does it gracefully, but he can never do so when the ques- 
tion of control is at stake. He must then assert his 
".will power" in a most determined manner, without 
making himself offensive or being tyrannical. 



HOW TO CONTROL A CLASS. 4 1 

5. It mast be patient. This is 'the greatest requisite. 
The quality of "will power" is of great importance, the 
quantity of it at a teacher's disposal is of far more conse- 
quence. It must wear well. There is a dignity and a 
majesty in the patient assertion of the right and ability 
to control, which never fails to command respect. It is 
well, when taking charge of a new class, not to punish 
for slight offences at first. The standard of the teacher 
should be the correct one from the start ; but if the 
pupils earnestly try to do what the teacher wishes, he 
should overlook slight offences until good conduct has 
become a habit. 

Control asserts itself chiefly through the lip, the 
tongue, and the eye. They should be used in the in- 
verse order to that in which they are named. The eye 
should be the exclusive medium of control, so far as 
possible; the tongue may be called to its aid in cases of 
emergency; the lip should be used very sparingly. The 
lip expresses firmness, combined with scorn or contempt, 
and these are sure to stir up active antagonism, rather 
than submission. A pupil may be, and sometimes 
should be, forced to yield without willing submission. 
Acquiescent obedience is most developing to the pupil 
and most pleasant to the teacher. In securing this com- 
pliance with the teacher's will the eye is the most power- 
ful agent. The eye alone can convey a message of power 
and conciliation at the same time, and these are the ele- 
ments of genuine control. 

However good a teacher's control may be, he must not 
think that he has secured the attention of his class 
merely on that account. 



42 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 



METHODS OF P%ESERPING AND STIMULAT- 
ING THE DESI%E FOR KNOWLEDGE 

Some one calls a child an "interrogative machine." 
Truly the appetite for knowledge with which nature en- 
dows him is a keen one, and difficult to satisfy. Some 
writers maintain that it is the duty of the school to set 
the child going mentally, 'that he may be self -educative 
when he leaves school. If pupils left school in as self- 
educative a condition as they enter it, there would be 
less ground for complaint than at present. The boy 
begins to "go" when very young, and for a few years he 
continues to develop at a very rapid rate. Very few 
children are dull when very young. Most children 
make remarkable progress until they go to school. Then 
too often comes a period of stagnation from which many 
never emerge. Improper methods are too often the 
cause of the discouraging change. The following are 
points deserving consideration by teachers of primary 



1. The Transition from the Home to the School should 
be More Natural. — The child on entering an ordinary 
school, passes from comparative freedom to confinement 
and restraint ; from bounding activity to wearisome 



STIMULATING DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 43 

quiet; from actual things to uninteresting abstractions; 
from living flowers, and birds, and pets, to mere black 
marks called letters, in which for themselves he can 
have no active interest; from play to work; from instinc- 
tive to compulsory attention; from fresh air and sun- 
shine to bad ventilation and imperfect and often injuri- 
ous lighting ; from the mossy bank to the hard and 
ill-formed seat. 

Where the kindergarten can be introduced it serves to 
make the steps gradual in the change from the home to 
the school. The school should learn many lessons yet 
from the home and the kindergarten. Teachers must 
study the child more before he enters school, and they 
should continue in school more closely the methods of 
self-education practised by him, while he was at liberty 
to follow nature's guidance. 

2. Knowledge should be Used as it is Acquired. — Chil- 
dren delight in coming in contact with things which 
they can use. They are interested in what things do. 
This shows itself very early in life. The baby, learning to 
talk, names the domestic animals according to the sounds 
they make. He calls the dog "bow-wow," and the cat 
"meow." This is true whether the name of the animal 
is more or less difficult to say than the sound made. 
While they have been making such rapid strides in 
learning and mental development at home, they were 
doing so by handling the things around them, and by 
using their knowledge as quickly as they gained it. 
What a change comes when they go to school ! Many 
even of the thoughtful class of teachers deliberately re- 



44 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

verse this plan. They reason somewhat in this manner: 
"These children cannot do much actual work yet, and 
so we may as well save time by making them do the 
drudgery of school work now. " They are therefore set 
to learn all the letters before they begin to read, all the 
tables before they put them to any practical use, etc. It 
is probable that the letters and the multiplication table 
have done more to stupefy boys and girls than any other 
causes. Girls and boys can work, and by working they 
not only learn how to work better, but become familiar 
with the elements of work they may be using. Even if 
the worst of all methods of teaching the names of words, 
the alphabetic, be used, no letters should be taught at 
first but those used on the first page or tablet of reading 
in the primer. The child should use the multiplication 
table, for instance, as he learns it, and he will thus 
pleasantly learn it as he uses it. Using and learning go 
hand in hand. Practical application is the highest and 
most effective style of review. A pupil will learn the 
« Two" line as far as "twice 4" in four minutes, but it 
will probably forget it in an hour, unless it is allowed to 
apply the knowledge it has gained. Why not teach it 
the process of multiplying at once in five minutes more, 
and then set it at work? "Oh, the child should never 
multiply until it knows its multiplication table!" says 
some driller. Does the study of the multiplication table 
qualify a child for the comprehension of the multiplying 
process ? Certainly not. Then again, the child who has 
been taught as far as "twice 4" does know the mul- 
tiplication table, so far as he is required to put it in 
practice. His teacher can assign several examples with 



STIMULATING DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 45 

no other multiplier but 2, and no figures in the multi- 
plicand but 1, 2, 3, and 4. It will do him great good to 
work the very same examples over a second or third 
time. Next day advancement should be made in the 
table and much practice given on both lessons, and so on 
to the end. This method will not prove a source of 
horror to pupils, but will delight them because they use 
the information as they get it. 

If an apprentice, on entering a machine shop, were 
compelled by the foreman to spend months in learning 
the names of the various machines and their different 
parts, their relations to each other, their uses, etc., would 
such a course fit him to take charge of even one of the 
machines ? The probability is, that long before the ex- 
piration of the time specified his work of learning, at 
first fascinating to him, would become loathsome, and 
from loss of interest he would be to a large degree inca- 
pacitated for the highest degree of success in his work. 
He should, and in charge of a practical man in any de- 
partment of work he does, begin with the simplest of 
all the tools or machines, and he learns how to use it 
by using it. Others are entrusted to his charge when 
he is ready for them. Teachers should also be reason- 
able in familiarizing their pupils with the tools they 
have to use. The letters, the tables, rules in grammar, 
and other subjects, are merely the tools with which the 
child should be taught to educate himself, and they 
should be given to him only as he is able to use them. 
In geometry, for instance, definitions, axioms, and 
postulates should be taught, as they are needed to en- 
able the pupil to overcome a difficulty he has met in his 



46 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

work. He will be interested in a definition when he 
has been made conscious of the thing to be defined, and 
when he realizes clearly the need of the definition by 
the use he has to make of it immediately. 

3. The Work of School should afford Pleasure.— If the 

desire for knowledge is to be kept alive and vigorous, if 
it is to survive through the early years of school life, 
school work must be made attractive. Herbert Spencer 
says that, of all the educational changes taking place, 
ic the most significant is the growing desire to make 
the acquirement of knowledge pleasurable rather than 
painful — a desire based on the more or less distinct per- 
ception, that at each age the intellectual action which a 
child likes is a healthful one for it ; and conversely. 
There is a spreading opinion that the rise of an appetite 
for any kind of knowledge implies that the unfolding 
mind has become fit to assimilate it, and needs it for 
the purposes of growth; and that, on the other hand, 
the disgust felt towards any kind of knowledge is a sign 
either that it is prematurely presented, or that it is pre- 
sented in an indigestible form. Hence the efforts to 
make early education amusing, and all education inter- 
esting. ... As a final test by which to judge any plan 
of culture, should come the question — Does it create a 
pleasurable excitement in the pupils ?" Locke says: " It 
is a contradiction to the natural state of childhood for 
them to fix their fleeting thoughts. Whether this be 
owing to the temper of their brains, or the quickness or 
instability of their animal spirits, over which the mind 
has not yet got a full command; this is visible, that it is 



STIMULATING DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 47 

a pain to children to keep their thoughts steady to any- 
thing. A lasting attention is one of the hardest tasks 
can be imposed on them; and therefore he that requires 
their application should endeavor to make what he pro- 
poses as grateful and agreeable as possible. If they come 
not to their books with some kind of liking and relish, 
'tis no wonder their thoughts should be perpetually shift- 
ing from what disgusts them ; and seek better entertain- 
ment in more pleasing objects." 

Discard any system of primary instruction, however 
time-honored or in accordance with theory it may be, 
unless it makes lessons attractive. With the older 
children the step from instinctive to controlled atten- 
tion must be gradually taken. 

It is very desirable that teachers should avoid any 
course of action which will tend to make learning dis- 
tasteful. If men are to be self- educative when they 
leave school, they should have a love for knowledge ; 
certainly they must not have an aversion to it. Lessons 
should never be assigned as a punishment. Pupils may 
be compelled to do after school, or at home, work which 
they neglected to do at the right time. This is not a 
punishment for the neglect, however, but the perform- 
ance of a duty which ought to have been done before. 

4. School Exercises should be Varied as much as 
Possible. — Of course, the programmes of studies should 
be fixed, and the time-table adhered to regularly. This 
much is necessary to secure systematic work, and to 
distribute the school time equitably among the different 
subjects. The plan of presenting a subject should be 



48 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

changed, hpwever. Some new element should be intro- 
duced, each day. In teaching geography, for instance, 
maps may be used one day, blackboard and slates the 
next, and the sand-box the next ; to-day the teacher 
may point to the places he wishes to have remembered 
and the pupils find their names, to-morrow he may give 
the names and they find their positions on their maps. 
The plan should be varied during a single recitation, to 
a certain extent. So long as variety does not dissipate 
the attention, there cannot be too much of it. Freshness 
stimulates mental activity, routine deadens it. 

5. The Child's Curiosity should be kept Alive. — Some 
classes are always on the tiptoe of expectation. The 
teacher who can secure such a condition in his class is 
certain to have attentive scholars. Natural aptitude 
in the teacher has something to do in stimulating the 
curiosity of pupils. The power to sustain it, however, 
must be acquired. Pupils will not long seek to be fed 
with chaff. The teacher must be prepared to gratify 
the appetite which he aims to develop. He must be 
familiar with the subjects he has to teach ; he should be 
well acquainted with all that relates to them in con- 
nection with current events. Hart aptly says: "To 
real, successful teaching, there must be two things, 
namely, the ability to hold the minds of the children, 
and the ability to pour into the minds thus presented 
sound and seasonable instruction. Lacking the latter 
ability, your pupil goes away with his vessel unfilled ; 
lacking the former, you only pour water on the ground." 



STIMULATING DESIRE FOR KNOWLEDGE. 49 

6. The Lessons given and the Subjects taught ought to 
be Adapted to the Advancement of the Pupils. — If lessons 
are too difficult a child will naturally turn from them, 
first in disappointment, afterwards with dislike. The 
subjects should be presented in a manner suited to the 
ages of the pupils taught. Some of the most interesting 
studies are rendered permanently obnoxious by improper 
methods of teaching them to children at first. For 
instance, in teaching a foreign language, or the grammar 
of our own language, difficult and uninteresting rules, 
with puzzling exceptions to the general rule, are memor- 
ized and recited, and the teacher (in addition to this 
outrage) actually deceives the unfortunate and long- 
suffering pupils by allowing them to believe that such 
wearisome drudgery is learning language or grammar. 
They, of course, in most cases, associate the unpleasant 
feelings they receive in school with study and learning 
in the abstract, and therefore get a distaste for know- 
ledge itself. Let the methods and the subjects be 
appropriate for the ages of the pupils, and their love of 
learning will continue. 

7. The Steps in Learning should Not be too Great. — If 

a desire for knowledge is to be maintained, the pupil 
must be able to see clearly how one portion of a subject 
is connected with another. The step to be taken should 
be based on those already established, and the teacher 
should remember that what appears but a mole-hill to 
him may be a mountain to his pupils. In learning to 
climb, the pupils must take the necessary steps them- 
selves. The teacher presents the difficulties that they 



SO SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

may climb over them. He must not lift his pupils over 
any difficulties which they can surmount by their own 
efforts. Each effort made gives greater power to make 
a similar effort, as well as a greater tendency to make 
it. It is of the utmost importance, therefore, that the 
pupils should not be discouraged by being called upon 
to take steps too great for their mental strength. He is 
the best teacher who can most clearly remember his 
own early difficulties in learning. 

8. Lessons must Not be too Long. — This is true, both as 
regards lessons at school and those assigned for home 
preparation. Long-continued lessons in school weary 
the mind; long lessons learned at home tire both mind 
and body. When learning becomes a " task" it neces- 
sarily ceases to be attractive in itself. It should not be 
surprising that under such circumstances children lose 
their natural eagerness for knowledge. 

If the suggestions given be carried out in the right 
spirit, boys and girls will continue to be " interrogative 
machines" throughout their whole lives. 



NATURAL DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. 5 I 



HOW TO GRATIFY AND "DEVELOP THE NAT- 
URAL "DESIRE FOR OMENTAL tACTIVITY. 

Activity is one of the instincts of childhood. A 
child is not happy unless its mental or # physical powers, 
or both, are engaged. Productive activity is the only 
corner-stone on which a truly philosophical system of 
education can be founded. Give a child work to do of a 
character suited to his age, let it call his mental faculties 
and manual abilities into play, and he will be attentive, 
not merely because he is occupied, but because his occu- 
pation gives him delight. Fellenberg says: " Experience 
has taught me that indolence in young persons is so di- 
rectly opposite to their natural disposition to activity, 
that unless it is the consequence of bad education, it is 
almost invariably connected with some constitutional de- 
fect." Hailman says: " Perhaps attention and activity 
of the mind are convertible terms; for we observe that 
the mind is never attentive, unless it is aroused to action 
by some external cause (such as a wonderful object, an 
exciting scene, a thrilling narrative, a deep sorrow), or 
by an internal cause — the will. " It is important, there- 
fore, in order to secure attention, that every means be 
taken to awaken and satisfy the child's mental activity. 
To do this it will be found necessary to attend to the 
following: 



52 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

1. Do as Little Telling as Possible when Teaching. — 

Of course, the teacher should not try to teach everything 
by experiment, as he would waste time in doing so. The 
accumulated knowledge of the ages is a store from which 
the pupils ought to be allowed to draw largely without 
making all the necessary discoveries and progressive steps 
themselves. But whenever the teacher can lead his pu- 
pils in the development of a subject he should do so. He 
should not allow them to wander in search of the gold 
mines of knowledge, neither should he dig the gold and 
coin it for them. The word for " schoolmaster" in the 
Welsh language has a very suggestive meaning. The 
word for school is " Ysgol," which conveys the meaning 
at once of progression in learning being step by step, 
commencing at the lowest rung and going upwards. 
The name for schoolmaster is " Ysgolfeister," the full 
signification being " One that teaches to climb." The 
teacher should not merely climb himself and throw down 
to his pupils the treasures which he finds. He should 
teach each pupil to climb for himself, so that as he goes 
higher he may grow stronger. " This need for perpet- 
ual telling is the result of our stupidity, not the child's. 
We drag it away from the facts in which it is interested, 
and which it is actively assimilating for itself; we put 
before it facts far too complex for it to understand, and 
therefore distasteful to it; finding that it will not volun- 
tarily acquire these facts, we thrust them into its mind 
by force of threats and punishments; by thus denying it 
the knowledge it craves, and cramming it with knowledge 
it cannot digest, we produce a morbid state of the facul- 
ties, and a consequent disgust for knowledge in general; 



NATURAL DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. 53 

and when, as a result partly of the stolid indolence we 
have brought on, and partly of still continued unfitness 
in its studies, the child can understand nothing without 
explanation, and becomes a mere passive recipient of our 
instruction, we infer that education must necessarily be 
carried on thus. Having by our method induced help- 
lessness, we straightway make the helplessness a reason 
for our method." * The pupils should be trained to be- 
come investigators, not accumulators merely. 

2. Give the Pupils their Rightful Share in the Work 
of Study. — Too much dependence is placed in eye teach- 
ing by many teachers. Pupils may see a great deal, 
without receiving fixed impressions, however. Seeing 
does not require great intensity of attention. The 
teacher cannot always be certain that the looking child is 
thinking about the subject in hand. He may look at 
the teacher, or the blackboard, or an object, and yet be 
thinking about his last fishing experience. 

A Sunday-school teacher was delighted with the ap- 
parent interest manifested by one of her pupils, who, 
contrary to his usual custom, kept his eyes riveted on 
her during the whole lesson. When the lesson was over 
he surprised her by saying: " Miss Jones, you didn't 
move your under- jaw once while you were talking." 
The teacher should have made him talk or write, or draw 
or make something as the lesson proceeded. Her mis- 
take was in supposing that boys can listen long to even 
good talking. Listening attention is not of much conse- 

* Intellectual Education. — Herbert Spencer. 



54 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

quence at best. It is merely receptive, but it should be 
productive. 

The inattention so lamentably noticeable in most Sun- 
day schools, and many public schools, is due to the fact 
that pupils are mere recipients of information and not 
active participators in the process of learning. They are 
hearers, when they should be doers. Their desire for 
mental activity languishes and gradually dies from lack 
of exercise for their mental powers. They are only re- 
quired to listen or look and remember. They become 
passive because the teacher gives them little opportunity 
to be anything else. They would lose some of their 
powers altogether if they went to school all the time. 

3. Let Pupils Use their Hands as much as Possible 
while Learning. — The true sequence in gaining and fix- 
ing knowledge is, investigation, perception, conception, 
application. Our clearest perceptions are those received 
incidentally from things as Ave make or use them. No 
conception is ever perfectly definite until we have in 
some way applied it in activity. Memory should be 
stored by repetition of processes, not by repetition of 
words or statements. Drawing or collecting specimens 
of netted veined and parallel veined leaves will give clear 
perceptions and definite and permanent conceptions, 
infinitely better than any amount of repetition of the 
best possible definitions. The beginning and the ending 
of knowledge - gaining is in doing or experimenting. 
Knowledge should not be stored up for use, it should be 
stored by use. This will not only fix the knowledge bet- 
ter, but will train the power to use knowledge, a much 



NATURAL DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. 55 

more important department of educational work than 
mere knowledge-gaining. 

The use of the hands is the only certain way of com- 
pelling the pupils to attend to their work. No mind 
but his own can guide a pupil's hand. When he is mak- 
ing anything, he must, therefore, use his mental powers 
so far as is necessary in order to guide his hand. There 
is no other effort of his that can require so definite a con- 
centration of his powers, and so complete an application 
of his knowledge, as the effort to give a visible represen- 
tation of the conceptions he has in his mind. No other 
process forces him to make so close an introspection of 
his conceptions, or so clearly demonstrates to him the in- 
definiteness or inaccuracy of his mental pictures, or so 
permanently photographs them in his memory. The 
beginning and the end of knowledge-gaining is in using 
things, not in receiving lessons about them. No mother 
is foolish enough to give lessons to her children on 
spoons, knives, chairs, etc., etc., but a child of three 
years old knows the names and uses of every article in 
the house, and outside of it too, so far as it has used 
them. If every teacher could be a Newton and see this 
apple fall, the most serious blundering in the teaching of 
the schools would soon be recognized and removed. 

Reproducing knowledge independently is a process 
that can be applied in every school study by every pupil. 
It is the only sure way of insuring attention, stimulating 
mental activity, defining and fixing the conceptions, and 
revealing the nature of these conceptions to the teacher, 
so that he may correct them when inaccurate, and im- 
prove them when they are indefinite. 



56 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION, 

4. Do Not Weary the Minds of the Pupils. — A proper 
amount of physical exercise produces beneficial effects on 
the muscular system; beyond a certain point it is ex- 
haustive. So a judicious amount of mental exercise 
strengthens and develops the mental powers, but study 
after the "fatigue point" has been reached has a debil- 
itating effect. The moderate use of the physical powers 
gives pleasure, and increases the longing for exertion; 
so the judicious application of the mind awakens greater 
desire for study, and gives additional power to investi- 
gate the problems which may be presented for thought. 
One of the teachers most certain to fail is he who tries 
to make his pupils do mental work for sixty minutes in 
each hour. 

5. Do Not Overload the Minds of the Pupils. — The car- 
rying power of a child's mind is frequently over-estima- 
ted by teachers. Many brilliant boys are made to carry 
such large loads of knowledge during their schooldays, 
that they become mentally paralyzed to a certain extent, 
and never recover their full vigor of thought. This 
partly accounts for the fact that so many clever school- 
boys turn out to be only mediocre men. Over-eating 
causes .dyspepsia and destroys the appetite for food. 
There are mental dyspeptics. 

6. Let the Lessons and Teaching be Suitable to the Age 
and Development of the Child. — Medical men recognize, 
as a most important factor in the development of the 
body, the necessity for a proper supply of food of a na- 
ture suited to the needs and powers of the child, and 



NATURAL DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. $7 

they clearly indicate certain kinds of food certain to be 
injurious to young children. Mental philosophers as 
clearly indicate that there are stages in mental growth 
in which the children should not be required to study 
certain subjects. There can be no doubt that children 
are usually taught to read at much too early an age. 
Children should be led by more natural steps from the 
condition of instinctive to that of controlled attention. 

7. Be Sure that your Pupils receive Definite Ideas 
from your Teaching. — One of the teacher's greatest dif- 
ficulties is to realize the weakness of his pupils in mental 
grasp, and their lack of extended and definite knowl- 
edge. He is the best teacher morally who has the heart 
of a child combined with the wisdom of a man. He is 
the best teacher mentally who can realize most clearly 
his own mental condition when a boy, both as regards 
power and knowledge. The ridiculous answers pub- 
lished in " English as she is taught," and similar collec- 
tions, serve to show that we give children credit for know- 
ing correctly many things about which they have widely 
distorted conceptions. The effects of using language not 
accurately comprehended by pupils are most disastrous 
in confusing and stupefying their minds, and in prevent- 
ing the fulness of interest that is the greatest stimulant 
to mental activity. Children should be so trained that 
they will ask at once for the full meaning of any term 
not fully understood. A wise teacher or parent will 
always urge his children to pass over no word or sentence 
in his general reading without knowing its meaning. 
Heading should be done from papers, periodicals, or 



58 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

books with a dictionary at hand, and thrice blessed is 
the child who has access to a cyclopaedia in which it may 
find explanations of any references in its reading which 
it does not comprehend. The knowledge the child thus 
gains is valuable, and the training it receives is of much 
more importance. There must be no haziness surround- 
ing the subjects of study so far as a child has advanced, 
if we expect him to continue to be interested in them 
sufficiently to arouse a sufficient amount of aggressive 
mental activity. 

Pupils must be trained to express in outward form on 
their slates, orally and in other ways, the conceptions 
they have received, so that the teacher may be able to see 
clearly what is really in their minds. He will then be 
able to appreciate the weaknesses of their minds, and of 
his own teaching. The attempt to give expression to 
his thoughts in writing or by drawing will help to make 
clear to the pupil himself the defects in his own concep- 
tions regarding a subject. It is one of the most impor- 
tant steps in learning to make the learner conscious of 
his need. 

8. Have Matches in the Various School Subjects. — Who 

does not remember the enlivening effects of the spelling 
matches of his boyhood? So intensely was their atten- 
tion concentrated upon the subject in hand, that grown 
men remember distinctly the very words missed by them- 
selves and others in some remarkable contests. Such 
matches may just as well be conducted in reviewing the 
other school subjects as in spelling, and their effects in 
inspiriting classes will always be found to be very bene- 



NATURAL DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. 59 

ficial. They should not be held at stated times, or con- 
ducted in a formal and indifferent manner by the 
teacher, or they will lose their interest. 

9, Question while Teaching. — Some teachers ask 
questions only while reviewing. This is a serious mis- 
take. To test knowledge is certainly one of the func- 
tions of questioning, but it is a subordinate one. So- 
cratic, Instructive, Teaching, or Developing questioning 
is the most efficacious mode of teaching. It does not 
simply give information; it arouses the minds of pupils 
to activity, guides the active minds in the acquisition of 
knowledge, and sets the stored minds upon the plan of 
using the information obtained. It develops not only 
receptive, but productive activity. "He who gives 
knowledge to the human mind is a benefactor; but far 
greater is he who by giving knowledge quickens into 
activity and productiveness the mind upon which he 
works. The true teaching process involves the power of 
intellectual quickening, which is that process by which 
the teacher excites the intellectual powers of his pupils 
to self -activity in the line of his teaching; and to be 
really effective it must also lead to the courses of thought, 
feeling, purpose, and action which are the proper prod- 
ucts of the truth taught." 

Teachers should talk and tell less, and draw out more. 
Questioning from the known to the unknown welds the 
links in the chain of knowledge as they are formed, so 
that when completed they are not merely isolated facts. 
It gives a pupil a conscious power to overcome difficul- 



6o SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

ties for himself. The following rules should be observed 
when questioning: 

1. Do not ask questions in rotation. 

2. Do not point to the pupil whom you wish to an- 
swer while asking a question. 

3. Do not even look fixedly at the pupil whom you 
wish to answer, while giving the question. 

4. State questions to the class as a whole; ask one 
member for the answer. 

5. Do not wait an instant for the answer when review- 
ing most subjects. 

6. Do not look steadily at the pupil who is answering. 

7. Do not repeat a question to oblige those who were 
inattentive. 

8. Be sure to ask questions to those who are in the 
slightest degree inattentive. 

9. Ask most questions to timid or backward pupils. 

10. Ask easy questions to dull and diffident pupils. 

11. Try simultaneous answering to overcome nervous- 
ness and hesitancy in answering. 

12. Occasionally ask elliptical, alternative or suggest- 
ive questions to develop the habit of answering. 

13. Vary the method of questioning. 

14. Never try to puzzle honest pupils. 

15. Do not ridicule an answer if given in sincerity. 

16. Do not prompt pupils who are answering. 

17. Be brisk. Do not pause between an answer and 
the next question. 

10. Let Pupils Question Each Other. — The contests 
which will awaken the highest degree of mental activity 



NATURAL DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. 6 1 

on the part of pupils are those conducted by themselves. 
Confine them to the work actually taught and give them 
due notice, and such exercises will produce the most sat- 
isfactory results. It is a good plan in some subjects to 
prepare a series of questions for the pupils covering the 
work to be learned. These should not be given that the 
pupils may merely prepare answers to them, to be re- 
cited in a parrot-like manner. They should simply 
guide to the golden thoughts. This will train them to 
gain thought readily and definitely from books. Few 
people can read a new book and give the central truths 
it contains specifically and clearly when they get through. 
Lists of questions will lead to reading with a conscious 
aim. 

11. Let the Pupils Ask Questions of the Teacher. — Pu- 
pils should always be encouraged to ask for explanations 
of the unsolved problems in their minds. The habit of 
indifference to the insights we gain regarding our lack 
of knowledge concerning important matters is a most 
destructive one in its effects on mental activity and 
growth. Our early instincts lead us to seek promptly 
for the solution of the problems that present themselves 
to our minds. ■ It is an awful thing to lose this instinct, 
and school methods must be bad or weak if they fail to 
define the instinct into a conscious habit. Pupils are 
not interested deeply in a subject if they do not ask 
questions regarding it. Their attention should be ag- 
gressive, not merely passive. In order to develop the 
habit of questioning by the pupils it is a good plan to 
devote the first five minutes of a lesson regularly in some 



62 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

subjects to questioning the teacher concerning the por- 
tion of the subject that has been assigned for home prep • 
aration. Pupils would soon learn to note the problems 
that would arise in their minds while studying, and for 
which they cannot themselves find answers. The habit 
of doing this is the only means of stimulating the ten- 
dency towards investigation and transforming the in- 
stinct of inquiry into a conscious search for truth. 

12. Use Illustrations. — Illustrations appeal to the eye, 
or to the imagination. The following kinds appeal to 
the eye: 

1. Blackboard illustration. 

2. Picture, map, and chart illustration. 

3. Model illustration. 

4. Object illustration. 

5. Illustration by experiments. 

6. Dramatic illustration. 

1. Blackboard Illustration is of more use than any or 
perhaps all other kinds of illustration, except that ac- 
tually done by the pupils themselves. Every teacher 
can use it; no teacher should try to teach without it. 
Its superiority over other methods of illustration consists 
chiefly in the fact that the work grows in the presence 
of the pupils. They see it made and help to make it, 
either by actually handling the crayon, or by making 
suggestions step by step as to what should be done next. 
The teacher who presents a finished illustration to his 
class weakens its effect by at least one half. It is nearly 
as bad to do the whole illustration, even in the presence 
of the pupils, without explanation to them, or assistance 



NATURAL DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. 63 

from them at every step. Some teachers work the com- 
plete solution of a problem on the board, when illustrat- 
ing a new rule in arithmetic or algebra, without speak- 
ing or even looking at the class until they have finished 
it. Then they turn round and give the explanation in 
the stereotyped question, " Do you see ?" They would 
have interested their pupils a great deal more, and have 
educated them nearly as much, by tossing a copper for 
' ' heads or tails/' The following rules should be prac- 
tised in blackboard illustration: 

(1) Arrange the steps in the process of thought in 
logical order 

(2) Number the various steps either by figures or let- 
ters. 

(3) The steps in the illustration should be taken as the 
process of thought is developed. 

(4) When illustrating distinctive characteristics, pe- 
culiarities of growth or construction, etc., in teaching- 
botany, zoology, natural philosophy, etc., it is well to 
exaggerate the special parts to which attention should 
be directed. 

(5) In solving a problem, making a diagram, drawing 
a map, explaining the construction of a machine, illus- 
trating botany or zoology, in fact in all kinds of black- 
board work, every pupil ought to do on slate or paper 
what the teacher does on the board, and usually part 
by part after h'im. ISTo other means of illustration can 
define and impress knowledge or train the observant 
powers so thoroughly as this. 

2. Picture map, and chart illustration may be used 
in conjunction with blackboard illustration, both preced- 



64 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

ing and following it, to give a correct idea of things as 
wholes, and to show in some cases the coloring, etc. 
They ought to be used, too, in testing the accuracy of the 
work done by the teacher and pupils. For instance, 
when a map has been sketched it should be compared in 
its leading outlines with the actual map to see whether 
the great features bear their proper relations to each 
other; whether Florida extends further south than Cali- 
fornia, etc. Every pupil should have his own map and 
make his own comparisons. 

3. Model illustration is used by some teachers very 
successfully by cutting out the shapes of things or their 
parts from brown paper or some similar material. A 
good set of illustrations of mathematical forms may thus 
be made. Models of machines, of the parts of the hu- 
man frame, etc., may be purchased, which will be of 
great use in teaching some subjects. Good teachers, 
however, usually try to make most of their own models. 

4. Object illustration must not be confounded with 
object-lessons, as this expression is used in its technical 
sense. In an object-lesson an object is examined as 
something of interest in itself, in object illustration the 
object merely represents something else. In arithmetic, 
for instance, the object, slat, stick, shoe-peg, bean, but- 
ton, or whatever else it may be, usually represents a 
unit. In all object illustration, the teacher should aim 
to have every pupil supplied with the necessary mate- 
rials for performing the illustrations himself. 

5. Illustration oy experiment should as far as possi- 
ble be conducted on the same principles as object illus- 
tration. It produces its highest results when every 



NATURAL DESIRE FOR MENTAL ACTIVITY. 6$ 

student performs for himself the experiments described 
by the teacher. If this cannot be done, the pupils, 
unless the class be too large, should assist the teacher 
each taking some part in preparing for the experiment. 

6. Dramatic illustration means representation by ac- 
tion. The living, energetic teacher uses this method of 
illustration very largely, and if appropriate it always aids 
greatly in communicating knowledge. It is of much 
use in giving ideas of shape, size, direction, motion, 
action of machines, etc. Any one who has ever seen a 
deaf mute address an audience by signs, must have real- 
ized to what an extent action may be even substituted 
for speech. A good teacher always uses his hands and 
arms to illustrate as well as emphasize what he says to 
his class. 

In all kinds of illustration that appeal to the eye, it is 
well to keep the pictures, charts, maps, models, objects, 
apparatus, etc., out of sight as much as possible uritil 
the time arrives for using it. This stimulates the curi- 
osity of the pupils and prevents the distraction of their 
attention. To show pictures at once, or to present the 
spectacle of a table covered with apparatus, is a capital 
method of gaining attention to the pictures or apparatus. 
It may make it all the more difficult, however, on this 
account to get the attention concentrated on the lesson 
itself. 

Illustrations that Appeal to the Imagination. — All 
kinds of illustrations are aids to the imagination, but 
stories, incidents, personal experiences, descriptions of 
noble deeds, these appeal directly to the imagination, 



66 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION, 

and depend on the imagination alone for the conceptions 
they are to produce in the mind. These illustrations 
are of great use in making real our ideas of abstract 
thought. They define and strengthen the conceptions 
of right and wrong, by associating them with living, 
with acting, with practical realities. As illustrations 
that we examine with the eye serve to make clear ab- 
stractions of truth in regard to fact, so the illustrations 
in the form of stories make clear abstract truth relating 
to duty. As the object embodies the fact so they em- 
body the duty. They present duty not as a theory but 
as a realization. They appeal not merely to feeling and 
thought, they stimulate to self -activity. They present 
duty to the complete sequence of mental and moral 
activity; feeling, thought, decision, action. 

In the strengthening of his moral nature by stories, 
the pupil should be allowed to do his own share of the 
work. The pupil should discover the facts in an object- 
lesson, he should also discover the moral in the story. 
The teacher should not point it out. The "moral of 
the story" should not be defined unless it can be imme- 
diately practised. 



DISTRACTING ATTENTION. 67 



DISTRACTING ATTENTION. 

"While it is the teacher's duty to develop in each child 
the power of concentration under distracting conditions, 
it is not wise to multiply distractions in school. The 
child's power of giving attention is in the formative stage. 
It is certain that it can best learn to attend only to 
one thing, by attending closely only to one thing. Giv- 
ing undivided attention should become a habit, before it 
is tested. Children cannot acquire this habit by at- 
tending or trying to attend to two or more things at the 
same time. They have not at first sufficiently developed 
will power to control their instinctive tendency to attend 
to everything that occurs in their presence. Few men 
ever reach the condition of being able to refrain from 
noticing even commonplace actions done within range of 
their vision. No lecturer can hold the attention of his 
audience when a man walks across the front of the hall 
to open or close a window. If it is difficult for men to 
avoid noticing distractions, it is much more difficult for 
boys to do so. While the habit of giving attention to 
one thing is being formed, distractions should be avoided 
so far as possible. The child's mind should get time to 
"set" in the mould of concentration, without interrup- 
tion, Hence it is clearly the teacher's duty to prevent 



68 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

distracting conditions, while his pupils are working. 
The following are among the dissipating causes that 
should be kept out of the schoolroom: 

1. Noisy Teaching. — Quietness is conducive to atten- 
tion. 

2. Over-demonstrative Teaching. — This transfers the 
attention from the subject to the teacher. 

3. Talking in too High a Key. — This is distracting in 
two ways. Pupils who are being taught find it very 
hard to listen/ and pupils at their seats find it difficult 
to work without being conscious of the unpleasant sound. 

4. Scolding, or even Censuring, Pupils Publicly. — This 
has a bad effect generally on the pupil reproved, and it 
is certain to distract the attention of every pupil, while 
perhaps only one was originally inattentive. 

5. Stamping on the Floor, Striking the Desk, Ringing 
a Bell, or any Sudden means of Ordering " Silence," must 
Prevent the Entire School from Attending to Study.— Our 

nervous systems become accustomed to continuous excit- 
ing causes, so as to be quite oblivious to them, but we 
can never get accustomed to explosions. 

6. Punishing during the Study*hour. — Human sympa- 
thy is always a motive sufficiently powerful to lead a 
whole class to watch with deep interest, if not strong 
feeling, the administering of punishment on a fellow- 



DISTRACTING ATTENTION. 69 

pupil. The punishment may usually be given with 
advantage in the presence of the class, but not while the 
class should be working. Between lessons or at the 
close of the forenoon or afternoon is a suitable time. 

7. Frequent Interruptions by Pupils Going Out, or 
Going for a Drink, etc. — Appeals to attention that come 
through the eye are much harder to resist than those 
that come through the ear. Sights distract more than 
sounds. Movements of pupils, therefore, are among the 
most certain causes that lead to inattention to the sub- 
ject of study. We may become so accustomed to sounds, 
and even to fixed and unchanging sights, as to be quite 
unconscious of them while we are studying. We can 
never reach a condition of concentration so deep as to 
prevent the distraction of our attention by movements 
within the range of our vision. Pupils cannot study 
well near an open window overlooking a street, or a place 
where workmen are employed. Shading the eye so as 
to shut out the attractions that appeal to it often aids 
the student in concentrating his attention. 

8. Whispering is a Prolific Source of Inattention. — The 

pupil who whispers is inattentive himself, and his whis- 
pering must distract the attention of the pupil to whom 
he speaks. There can be no defence of whispering. 
Honest pupils will not whisper when the evils that result 
from it have been explained to them, and dishonest 
pupils should not be allowed to do so. 



70 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 



Chapter X, 

TRAINING THE POWER OF ^TTENTIO^. 

One of the most important intellectual powers the 
teacher can ever develop in his pupils is the power of giv- 
ing close and persistent attention to one thing, either to 
an object of investigation or a subject of thought. He 
can best help to promote concentration by securing right 
conditions, and preventing distracting influences. Even 
grown-up men will find their minds wandering from a 
sermon if a baby speaks in a congregation, and every eye 
will turn from the preacher's face to follow the flight of 
a bird or a butterfly that has come in through the open 
church- window. It is much easier to distract a young 
mind than an old one. The young mind is volatile any 
way and disposed to wander. So far as possible, it 
should be trained to attend to one thing by having only 
one thing to which to give attention. Allurements to 
the young ears, and especially the young eyes, should be 
removed, that the young mind may be appealed to by but 
one thing at a time. The length of time such condensa- 
tion of attention should continue will depend on the age 
of the child. At first it should be a very short period. 
The mind of a young child acts with great intensity, and 
by forcing it to continue to investigate an object or a sub- 
ject after it has tired of it may train its mind to act 



TRAINING THE POWER OF ATTENTION. J I 



more slowly, with less intensity, and consequently with 
less definite and permanent conceptions as a result of his 
thinking. With proper focussing of the mind, its power 
is increased and its rate of investigation and reasoning 
greatly accelerated, so that long-continued study need 
not be essential. 

In training the attention the teacher should practise 
the following rules: 

1. His first duty is to secure proper external con- 
ditions, as pointed out in chapter iv. 

2. He should next prevent distraction by external 
causes, as explained in chapter ix. 

3. He should stimulate the natural desire for knowl- 
edge in his pupils, and gratify their desire for mental 
activity, in accordance with the principles laid down in 
chapters vii. and viii. 

4. Instinctive attention should be gradually developed 
into controlled attention. 

5. Volatile children should be asked to take a single 
object, and write down all they can discover concerning 
it in a specified time, say five or ten minutes according 
to the age of the child. 

6. Slow children should be asked to take a momentary 
look at a picture or similar composite subject, and then 
describe as many persons or things as they have seen in 
it. It is a good plan to encourage them to walk past a 
shop-window and then name all the articles they can 
remember. Quickness of observation really means power 
to attend rapidly and definitely. 

7. There is no school work that develops power of 
concentrating attention so fully as time tests in arith- 



J 2 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

metic. These should be given for a few minutes every 
day. They should be given more than once a day, if 
pupils seem to be listless and have difficulty in fixing 
their attention aggressively on study. Time tests should 
be confined to work in the simple rules, which the pupils 
know perfectly well how to do. Arithmetical work in- 
volves two processes : the thought process and the work 
process. As we can never attend so fully to two things 
as to one of them, it is clear that the attention can be 
fully concentrated in working arithmetic only when the 
thought process is performed automatically. Hence 
time tests should involve no work that is not fully un- 
derstood, and within the range of the pupils' power. The 
source of the attention-training power of time tests is 
the fact that a competitive efforts develops all the con- 
centration of energy of which children are capable. In 
a time test pupils compete against time as well as with 
each other. Time tests may be assigned in two ways. 
The amount of work to be done (added, multiplied, etc. ) 
may be given to be done in the shortest possible time ; 
or the time may be fixed and as much continuous mul- 
tiplication as possible done in the specified time by 
taking the product in each case as the next multiplicand. 
The latter plan is much better for fixing the attention. 

8. All competitive games either in the schoolroom or 
the yard aid in training the attention because they 
not only confine the mind to one thing at a time, but 
arouse it to intense effort, and apply the results of atten- 
tion immediately in some definite way for the accomplish- 
ment of a specific purpose. 

9, Mental arithmetic involving the work process only, 



TRAINING THE POWER OF ATTENTION. 73 

is an excellent means of developing the power of atten- 
tion. Long examples such as 8+7—3x4^6x3 
+ 4-f-7x9-r-4 + 7x4 + 8-h-9, etc., dictated by 
the teacher, compel at once the most absolute receptive 
and productive attention of the mind. If the rate of 
dictation be gradually increased by the teacher, a per- 
fectly surprising rate of speed may be attained. Such 
examples given quickly are very much more useful in 
training the mind than mental arithmetic involving con- 
siderable thought in solution. Logical power is by no 
means the best result of arithmetical teaching. Execu- 
tive power is much more useful. 

10. It is a good plan to read long sentences and ask 
the pupils to write them out after hearing them read 
once. 

11. A very interesting recreation for the class may be 
used with much profit to vary the monotony of school 
work and at the same time form the habit of attention, 
by reading a paragraph and requiring each pupil to write 
the number of words contained in the selection. The 
closest attention must be paid in order to count the 
words correctly. 

12. Spelling words letter by letter, each pupil naming 
only one letter in turn as the word is being spelled, 
demands a complete concentration of the attention. 

13. Eeading a new story to a class, which they are 
required to reproduce in their own words, makes it 
necessary to give close attention. 

14. The strengthening of the physical and mental 
nature will of course increase the power of giving intense 
and sustained attention. The teacher should learn two 



74 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

lessons from this fact : first, the lessons that require the 
closest attention should be given in the morning while 
pupils are fresh and vigorous ; second, that it is the 
teacher's duty to develop the physical as well as the in- 
tellectual natures of his pupils. 

15. Distributed attention may be developed by requir- 
ing every pupil to fix the eye on one object, and name as 
many more surrounding objects as possible while looking 
fixedly at one. It will be found that the more intense 
the attention given to one thing the more exclusive the 
attention in regard to other things, — that is, the smaller 
the circle within which we can be conscious of the ex- 
istence of separate objects. The larger the range of 
vision the more indefinite will be the attention possible 
to such object. 

16. The power to resist distracting influences should 
be developed. The teacher can train his pupils to resist 
the tendency to yield instinctive attention to what goes 
on around them by systematic practice in resisting con- 
sciously. With little ones he should begin by very sim- 
ple steps in resistance. For instance, if a door is opened, 
or a noise made at the rear of the school-room, every eye 
instinctively turns in the direction of the door, or of the 
noise. Eegular practice should be given in keeping the 
eyes fixed oif a single object indicated by the teacher, 
while a series of noises or movements are made that 
would naturally cause the heads to turn to see what was 
the cause of the disturbance. Power to refrain from the 
external indications of inattention will gradually develop 
the power of the will in resisting distracting influences 
either external or internal. 



TRAINING THE POWER OF ATTENTION. ?$ 



17. The method of training the attention may be 
summed up in the brief statement: We learn to attend 
by giving attention. Attention should be made a habit. 
Either attention or inattention may become habitual. 
If children, when young, are allowed to develop habits 
of inattention it will be very difficult to overcome these 
habits afterwards. The power of the habit of attention 
may be made so strong as to be a controlling influence 
for life. The habit of attention at first develops slowly 
and perhaps with conscious effort, but at length it be- 
comes automatic and intuitive in its action, so that we 
can give executive attention to the work we have in hand, 
and at the same time conduct a conversation on some 
entirely different subject. The great aim of the teacher 
should be to form the habit of concentrating the atten- 
tion. 

A teacher should keep " extra" work on the black-' 
board for those who get through with their work quickly, 
so as to prevent their acquirement of habits of idleness. 



76 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 



©Jjapttr X)L 

GENERAL SUGGESTIONS REGARDING AT- 
TENTION 

1. Get the Sympathy of your Class. — If your pupils are 
interested in you, they can be more easily interested by 
you in their lessons. The love of approbation is a strong 
motive, if the teacher is liked by the pupils. The desire 
to please a kind teacher will lead to great efforts to 
concentrate the attention on the subject he teaches. 
Teaches should strive to be cheerful, kind, courteous, 
polite, and discriminating in all their intercourse with 
their pupils in and out of school. "Good mornings" 
are easily given, but not easily forgotten. The child 
should be so treated as to leave no doubt in his mind as 
to the tender regard of his teacher for him and his 
kindly interest in his welfare and progres. It is only 
thus that the necessary condition of calmness of mind 
can be secured, and that co-operative effort between the 
teacher and the pupil without which pupils cannot learn. 
The worst-mannered and most vicious children need our 
affectionate interest most. Our liking for our bright, 
attractive, and obedient children is too often mere selfish- 
ness. We like them because it is a pleasure to do so. 
There is no unselfish desire to purify, or elevate, or 
strengthen the child in such a love. The depraved, ill- 
tempered, disobedient children need our sympathy and 



SUGGESTIONS REGARDING ATTENTION. 77 

love more than any others, and it pays to give it to them. 
It pays because a disobedient child is often an able child. 
It requires force and independence of character to be re- 
bellious, and genuine sympathetic interest will make the 
force and independence powers for good instead of evil. 
But loving work done for the unattractive or repulsive 
pays its highest reward in the development it brings to 
the teacher. No one can ever describe to another the 
joy of such unselfish love. 

2. Get the Confidence of your Class. — Let them see not 
merely that you regard the subjects you teach as of great 
importance, but alse that you arouse no inquiring inter- 
est whose questions you cannot answer. Be prepared 
with your work; never hazard a guess. " What is a 
mosque?" said a boy. Strange to say, the teacher did 
not know, and was not honest enough to confess his lack 
of knowledge. He risked his reputation by a guess : " Oh ! 
a mosque means a kind of sofa or lounge used in East- 
ern countries." That class could not have confidence 
in that teacher after such an answer. There can be no 
disgrace in not knowing all things; but it is discredita- 
ble to be dishonest in assuming to know that of which 
one is ignorant. Acknowledge frankly your lack of in- 
formation in regard to any question which comes up 
unexpectedly and which you have not before considered. 
If you do so your pupils will have implicit faith in you, 
when you assume to speak definitely. 

3. Be Magnetic. — It is not enough to merely attract a 
pupil's attention, it must be held. The teacher's man- 



78 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

ner has a good deal to do with holding the attention of 
his class. He should for the time make the pupils for- 
get their individual personality, and become one in aim 
and purpose with himself. How can this be done ? 

1. The teacher must understand his subject and have 
his lesson arranged so that he is not conscious of mental 
strain in teaching it. 

2. He must believe his lesson to be important. 

3. He must be earnest and enthusiastic, in order to 
stir up a corresponding zeal on the part of his pupils. 

4. He must not be listless, cold, formal, or mechani- 
cal in his teaching. 

4. Think out each Lesson for Yourself. — Do not merely 
memorize lessons, or depend upon those prepared by 
others, however good they may be. Let the lesson 
become your own by a careful process of thought, even 
though it may not be original thought. Studying a 
lesson by repeating the thoughts in logical order, and 
carefully considering their relationship to each other and 
to the general aim of the whole lesson, increases the 
magnetic personal power of the teacher, and doubles his 
attention -gaining and attention-holding power. There 
is as much difference in the personal influence of a 
teacher whose lesson has been thought out carefully, and 
that of one whose lesson has been learned by rote, as 
there is between the attractiveness of an orator who 
speaks without notes, and the man who reads his ser- 
mons or speeches. The one teacher can give his atten- 
tion to his class, the other must attend chiefly to his 
lesson. 



SUGGESTIONS REGARDING ATTENTION. ?g 

The difference in the effect produced by the two ways 
of teaching is much greater with children than with 
adults. 

5. Be Sure that Pupils Understand Clearly the Work 
they are Doing. — They cannot give intelligent attention 
to what is indefinate or confused. Adults are liable to 
use words which are perfectly incomprehensible to chil- 
dren. Teachers are very likely to forget the difficulties 
in their own early experience in study, and they usually 
proceed too rapidly, and fail to adopt the steps in learn- 
ing to the capacity of the little climbers. 

6. Do Not Depend too much on Simultaneous Answer- 
ing. — If you do, you cannot be sure that your pupils are 
giving intelligent attention. They may join mechan- 
ically in repeating an answer without thinking. Pupils 
may be taught to speak out by simultaneous answering, 
and time may sometimes be saved by its use. But the 
answering in such cases cannot be the result of inde- 
pendent thinking. Simultaneous repetition and simul- 
taneous answering must not be confounded. The fre- 
quent repetition of anything to be learned by rote is 
often the quickest way of impressing it on the minds of 
pupils. All the members of a class, if well trained, may 
responsively repeat brief statements made by the teacher 
while teaching. They may even answer together when 
being reviewed, if the teacher wishes the answer to be 
given in a set form of words. Even then there is a 
danger that the indolent will wait for the key-notes from 
the leaders. They should never answer together while 



SO SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

being taught, unless their answers can be given by a 
single word. If the answer to a teaching question re- 
quires independent thought, and it is of little conse- 
quence unless it does, it should not be answered simul- 
taneously, as each pupil may have a different answer. 
If the answers are certain to be literally the same they 
may be given at the same time. Even simultaneous 
repetition requires great care. The teacher must speak 
with the greatest possible precision and distinctness, and 
he must listen with the utmost care to the responses 
made. These responses should be given in a natural 
tone of voice. Classes that are allowed to repeat to- 
gether are liable to acquire a loud, drawling manner of 
speaking that is very disagreeable. Every teacher should 
remember, however, that in its most perfect form simul- 
taneous answering is the most mechanical kind of teach- 
ing. It is word-grinding, and generally the words, even 
if correctly uttered form but an " unmeaning jargon" 
to the pupils. 

7. Be Patient even if Children have Difficulty at first 
in Giving Fixed Attention. — The power to give atten- 
tion, like all other powers, grows by practice. It is 
difficult for a child to confine its attention even to an 
attractive object; it is much harder to attend to a formal 
lesson. Attention should become a habit, and habits 
require time to form. Teachers should be satisfied at 
first if their pupils are willing to attend. 

8. Show by your Manner that You Regard the Lesson 
as Duly Important. — If the teacher manifests a decided 



SUGGESTIONS REGARDING ATTENTION. 8 1 

interest in a subject, his pupils will naturally have their 
interest aroused, and interest is the parent of attention. 
There is no subject of school study in which the investi- 
gations of modern times are not opening up new treas- 
ures for the study of teachers. The teacher who has 
fresh thought for his pupils never fails to gain attention. 
Dr. Arnold studied his old subjects and things related 
to them, so that " his boys might drink from a running 
stream." A new fact in relation to any subject will 
arouse an energetic action of the teacher's own mind 
which will give him increased power to awaken and sus- 
tain attention. The fresh thought will form a nucleus 
around which the thought gained by former study of the 
subject will group itself by the law of association of ideas, 
and will thus become the surest and most logical way of 
recalling an old lesson. 

9. Attention Cannot be Gained and Held by Scolding, 
Threatening, Demanding it, or Pleading for it. — The im- 
patient teacher who scolds, threatens, or shakes a child to 
make him attentive usually prevents the pupil from- 
fixing his attention. If the child is at all nervous, his 
mind becomes a blank to all but terror. The sequence 
of intellectual action necessary to recall by conscious 
effort is then perfectly impossible. The wandering 
mind may be brought back from its reverie, by a sudden, 
vigorous, and even startling action on the part of the 
teacher, but in order to guide the awakened mind in the 
direction desired by the teacher, his attitude towards 
the pupil must be one of sympathy and not of coercion. 
Locke says: "'Tis, I know, the usual method of tutors 



82 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

to endeavor to procure attention in their scholars and to 
fix their minds to the business in hand, by rebukes and 
corrections. But such treatment is sure to produce 
quite the contrary effect. Passionate words or blows 
from the tutor fill the child's mind with terror and 
anrightment, which immediately takes it wholly up and 
leases no room for other impressions. I believe there is 
nobody that reads this but may recollect what disorder 
hasty or imperious words from his parents or teachers 
have caused in his thoughts; how for the time it has 
turned his brain so that he scarce knew what was said 
to him. He presently lost the sight of what he was upon, 
his mind was filled with disorder and confusion, and in 
that state was no longer capable of attention to anything 
else." 

10. The Unfamiliar attracts our Attention. — Strange 
sounds, new faces, odd costumes, novel sights, always 
awaken our interest and rivet our attention. We do not 
note the things to which we are accustomed. From 
these facts the teacher should learn to try to treat his 
pupils to a logical succession of surprises, objective and 
subjective. He should also learn to vary as much as 
possible his plans for conducting his lessons. The only 
limitation to the law of attractiveness in the unfamiliar 
is the fact that new things or truths may be so strange 
as to be unrelated to any thought already in the mind, 
and consequently the mind may be unconscious of them 
because unable to recognize them. This is the founda- 
tion principle of the law that we should proceed from 
the known to the unknown in teaching. 



SUGGESTIONS REGARDING ATTENTION. 83 

11. We Attend to what is Done Suddenly. — We fail to 
note that which occurs gradually. Parents do not see 
the gradual growth of their children, as clearly as friends 
who see them only periodically. The teacher may fail to 
realize that his class has grown noisy gradually, but will 
be certain to hear the noise of a falling slate. The 
teacher in a poorly ventilated school may have no idea 
that the air is impure, but a visitor detects the unpleas- 
ant odor at once. The teacher would have done so too 
if the foul condition had developed suddenly by a break 
in a gas-pipe or drain. There may be value, as has been 
pointed out already, in a sudden and even startling 
action on the part of the teacher, if the class, as a class, 
is listlessly dreaming. But the good teacher will rarely 
need to use this method of gaining attention, and no 
class can be startled into attention many times unless the 
teacher has something ready to supply the demands of 
the awakened mind. 

12. Pupils Delight to do those Things they can do 
Well. — It should never be forgotten that the most 
attractive object or subject, whatever the cause of its 
attractiveness, stimulates the mind to receptive attention 
only, or at least to nothing beyond investigating atten- 
tion. The fullest degree of attention can be given only 
in arousing the mind to executive work. Whatever 
attention a mind can give when receiving knowledge 
from another person, it can give closer attention when 
making investigations for itself, and it can give still more 
intense attention when putting knowledge into practice, 
if the thought in connection with the work to be done 



84 SECURING, AND RE T. AWING A TTENTION. 

is so perfectly familiar as to be used automatically, 
without distracting attention from the executive pro- 
cess. Pupils should have executive mental gymnastics 
in working the simple rules of arithmetic rapidly for the 
purpose of developing the power of attention until the 
last day of their school life 

13. The Power to give Attention Depends Somewhat 
on the Physical Condition. — It is difficult to secure in- 
terested attention from a sick or tired child. The child 
in the morning is keenly attentive to all that goes on 
around him, but is listless and indifferent when wearied 
in the evening. His attention is given to even trifling 
matters when he is fresh and full of vigor, but when sick 
or fatigued it requires a strong attraction or inducement 
to arouse him. 

Teachers should learn from this fact to arrange their 
programmes so as to have their pupils study those sub- 
jects requiring the most intense attention early in the 
day. 

14. As the Sphere of Observation is Limited the Atten- 
tion becomes more Definite. — The Indian sees the details 
in connection with his own life and surroundings much 
more accurately than the most cultured white man. The 
botanist sees distinctions in the shape color, and, size of 
plants unnoticed by his companion who is not a botanist, 
not because he has been trained to observe better than 
his friend, but because his range of observation is limited 
to plants. He himself is blind and deaf to a thousand 
things that his companion sees and hears. Long practice 



SUGGESTIONS REGARDING ATTENTION. 85 

in giving attention to the study of our choice makes at- 
tention first easy and then instinctive, and instinctive 
attention is always more intense and productive than 
controlled attention can be. An expert in any depart- 
ment of life-work sees without effort what others may be 
unable to see at all. 

15. The Truest Reasoning is that Based on Instinctive 
Attention.— Even the child's conclusions are true and 
clear within the limit of his intellectual power. The 
trained detective not only sees indications instinctively, 
but he draws conclusions regarding the commission of 
crime much more accurately than the best trained logi- 
cian's. 

The street arab, however, can instir ctively outwit 
the detective, because his sphere is more limited and 
therefore his attention is more instinctive. The dervis 
in the story of the "Lost Camel" explained to the 
owners of the camel the fact that he could describe the 
camel without ever having seen him, by saying: " I have 
been much amused with your surprise, and own that 
there has been some ground for your suspicions; but I 
have lived long, and alone; and I can find ample scope 
for observation, even in a desert. I knew that I had 
crossed the track of a camel that had strayed from its 
owner, because I saw no mark of any human footsteps 
on the same route; I knew that the animal was blind in 
one eye, because it had cropped the herbage only on one 
side of its path; and I perceived it was lame in one leg, 
from the faint impression that particular foot had pro- 
duced upon the sand; I concluded that the animal had 



$6 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

lost one tooth, because wherever it had grazed, a small 
tuft of herbage was left uninjured, in the centre of its 
bite. As to that which formed the burden of the beast, 
the busy ants informed me that it was corn on the one 
side, and the clustering flies that it was honey on the 
other." 

The most definite conceptions result from instinctive 
attention; and the more definite our conceptions the 
clearer our reasoning will be. When a man has for any 
reason been led to give attention to a subject for a length- 
ened period, the attention ultimately becomes instinct- 
ive, and his progress in learning or in thinking regarding 
this subject becomes correspondingly rapid, 

16. Persistent Attention to one Subject makes it 
Difficult to Attend to Other Subjects. — There is a ten- 
dency in the mind to pay attention to the kind of 
stimuli to which it has recently been most accustomed. 
This tendency increases as we advance in years. The 
child's mind possesses almost unlimited spontaneity. He 
has at first no mental habits. The elasticity of the 
mind grows less as we grow older, and most men find it 
very difficult to turn their attention at will from busi- 
ness or study, if their work or study is at all engrossing 
during business or study hours. The mental powers 
seem to converge, after a time, to the leading central 
channel of mental operation. This tendency needs 
careful watching, as it tends to make men narrowo The 
ideal mind is the one whose concentration is complete, 
but whose relaxation ic as perfect as its intensity of ap- 
plication. 



SUGGESTIONS REGARDING ATTENTION. 87 

There can be- 110 doubt, however, but that the giving 
of attention regularly to one class of stimuli, must 
necessarily tend to make the mind oblivious to stimuli 
of a different character. Seasoning, or paying attention 
to the internal, will gradually lessen our interest in the 
details of the external, and therefore will make us pay 
less attention to the world of objects and operations 
around us. The metaphysician commonly uses his eyes 
when he is out walking, only for the purpose of guiding 
him so as to avoid colliding with men or things. It is a 
pity that men should ever cease to be interested in exter- 
nal things. One set of mental powers may rest, while 
another set is being used. Close attention to internal 
stimuli should be alternated with investigating atten- 
tion to external stimuli. This will preserve the buoy- 
ancy of the mind, and enable it to retain its freshness 
and vigor. 

17. The following suggestions are selected from an- 
swers given by teachers at the examination of the Sunday 
School normal class at Chautauqua, in answer to the 
question: 

"How may the attention of a restless class be se- 
cured ?" 

1. "Generally by teaching in a dramatic, pictorial 
way ; make the truth vivid. Let the figures stand out 
from the canvas in bright colors and correct perspective, 
and anybody will look." 

2. "By saying or doing something that cannot fail to 
interest, at the first of the lesson. Having secured 
attention, endeavor to hold it by interesting them all the 



88 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION, 

way. Beware of a flagging for a moment. If you clothe 
the dry bones of a lesson with flesh and blood, you can 
hold the interest." 

3. " Never by telling them to pay attention, or by 
severe words, but by entertaining them ; putting the 
lesson in such way that it will command their attention. 
Keep them so busy they will not have time to be inat- 
tentive. Always have plenty of work prepared for your 
class." 

4. "By introducing a story bearing upon the lesson, 
or by showing a picture or drawing a map." 

5. " Get them interested. To do this let the teacher 
show his interest in the lesson. Let him be thoroughly 
posted in the same. Let him use quick, pertinent ques- 
tions, and well-selected illustrations. Let him keep 
every one busy, or expecting something to do every 
moment, or expecting to hear something attractive." 

6. " There are various devices for particular cases and 
times, but in general let the teacher be full of the sub- 
ject in hand, and his earnestness will be contagious. " 

7. "First see that they are comfortable. See, then, 
that you are not prosy yourself, that you are giving them 
enough to do. Illustrate your point from common life, 
with which they are acquainted." 

8. "By giving plenty of fresh air, exercise of body or 
mind, or both, and by being a good teacher, which an- 
swers the whole question." 

9. " Sometimes by varying the exercises, stopping short 
and asking a curious question, telling a story, using 
tact." 

10. " By tact in teaching." 



SUGGESTIONS REGARDING ATTENTION 89 

11. " By some apt illustration. By a change in the 
manner of teaching." 

12. " Sometimes it may be secured by waiting for 
them to become quiet and attentive. Give them some- 
thing to do. Let it be something you know they can do, 
and again something that will require thought and con-> 
centration. Let them know that you are really anxious 
about them, and show them your sympathy." 

13. "Attention may be secured by the intense in- 
terest which the teacher manifests. By variety. Some- 
times throwing the lesson into the form of a story with 
question and illustration, giving each one something 
to do." 

14. "By giving special topics in the next lesson, 
expecting each to tell all he or she can about it. Give 
No. 1 the persons, No. 2 the places, etc. No. 5 tell the 
story of the lesson, No. 6 give an illustration. Another 
way is to know the lesson and enter into it heartily." 

15. "By gentleness, a lovingly manifested spirit, by 
word and act. By inciting interest. It never failed. 
It can't fail." 

16. "By being interested yourself, and teaching in 
such a way that they can understand what you say. By 
making a few points and using the blackboard." 

17. "By giving each one work to do. By object- 
teaching. By exciting to competition and rivalry. By 
having something to teach, and giving it in the most 
attractive and forcible manner possible." 

18. " By using tact ; change of posture ; appealing to 
curiosity. Giving them something to do." 

19. "If the eyes of a class can be secured, their minds 



90 SECURING AND RETAINING ATTENTION. 

may be fixed. Therefore blackboard or other methods 
of object-teaching are useful. Strive to excite their 
curiosity. Tell them a story. Ask them questions and 
get them to give their own experience." 

20. " By questions necessitating thought and yet 
within the ability of pupils to answer. By some unex- 
pected question or illustration. By being wide-awake. 
By convincing the class that you understand your 
business. 

21. "Be quite yourself. Be prepared so you can 
give full attention to them. Use some incident that will 
interest, and yet that will enable you to proceed natur- 
ally to your work. Never demand attention." 

22. "In a thousand ways by using the principle of 
fact. Tell a story, do anything that will make the class 
interested in the lesson, or rather first in the teacher and 
then in the lesson. Do not scold, almost anything else 
may be done." 



Books for Teachers, 



■-INDUSTRIAL- 
-•EDUCATION^ 



Loves Industrial Education. 

Industrial Education ; a guide to Manual Training. By 
Samuel G. Love, principal of the Jamestown, (N. Y.) 
public schools. Cloth, 12nio, 830 pp. with 40 full-page 
plates containing nearly 400 figures. Price, $1.75 ; to 
teachers, $1.40 ; by mail, 12 cents extra. 
1. Industrial Education not understood. Probably the only 
man who has wrought out the problem in a practical way is 

^ Samuel G. Love, the superin- 
tendent of the Jamestown (N. 
Y.) schools. Mr. Love has now 
about 2,400 children in the 
primary, advanced, and high 
schools under his charge ; he 
is assisted by fifty teachers, so 
that an admirable opportunity 
was offered. In 1874 (about 
fourteen years ago) Mr. Love 
began his experiment ; gradu- 
ally he introduced one occu- 
pation, and then another, until 
at last nearly all the pupils are 
following some form of educate 
ing work. 

2. Why it is demanded. The 
reasons for introducing it are 
clearly stated by Mr. Love. It 
was done because the educa- 
tion of the books left the pu, 
pils unfitted to meet the prac- 
tical problems the world asks them to solve. The world does 
not have a field ready for the student in book-lore. The state- 
ments of Mr. Love should be carefully read. 

3. It is an educational book. ■ Any one can give some 
formal work to girls and boys. What has been needed has 
been some one who could find out what is suited to the little 
child who is in the " First Eeader," to the one who is in the 
"Second Reader," and so on. It must be remembered the 
effort is not to make carpenters, and type-setters, and dress- 
makers of boys and girls, but to educate them by these occupa- 
tions better than without them. 




:LOVE : 



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4. It tells the teacher just what to do. Every teacher should 
put some form of Manual Training into his school. At pres- 
ent the only ones are Gymnastics, Writing, and Drawing. 
But there are, it is estimated, more than thirty forms of 
Industrial Work that may be made educative. The teacher 
who studies this book will want to try some of these forms. 
He will find light on the subject. 

5. It must be noted that a demand now exists for men and 
women to give Industrial Training. Those teachers who are 
wise will begin now to study this important subject. The 
city of New York has decided to introduce it into its schools, 
where 140,000 pupils are gathered. It is a mighty undertak- 
ing, but it will succeed. The people see the need of a differ- 
ent education than that given by the books. Book education 
is faulty, partial, incomplete. But where are the men and 
women to come from who can give instruction ? Those who 
read this book and set to work to introduce its methods into 
their schools will be fitting themselves for higher positions. 

The Lutheran Observer says :— " This volume on Manual Teaching 
ought to be speedily introduced into all the public schools. It is admir- 
ably adapted for its purpose and we recommend it to teachers every- 
where." 

The Nashville American says :— " This is a practical volume. It 
embodies the results of many years of trial in a search after those 
occupations that will educate in the true sense of the word. It is not a 
work dealing in theories or abstractions, but in methods and details, 
such as will help the teacher or parent selecting occupations for chil- 
dren.' 

West Virginia School Journal.—" It shows what can be done by a 
resolute and spirited teacher." 

Burlington Free Press.—" An excellent hand book." 

Prin. Sherman Williams, Glens Falls, N. T.— "I am sure it will 
greatly aid the solution of this difficult problem." 

Prof. Edward Brooks, Late Principal Millersburg, (Pa.) Normal 
School.—" It is a much needed work ; is the best book I have seen." 

Supt. S. T. Button, New Haven.— "The book is proof that some 
practical results have been reached and is full of promise for the 
future. 

Supt. John E. Bodley, Minneapolis.— " I know of no one more com- 
petent to tell other superintendents and teachers how to introduce Man- 
ual Training than Prof. Love." 

Oil City Blizzard.—" The system he has marked out must be a good 
one, or he would never have allowed it to go out." 

Buffalo Times.—" Teachers are looking into this subject and this will 
help them." 

Boston Advertiser. — "A plain unvarnished explanation." 

Jamestown, N. Y. Evening Journal- "In the hands of an intelligent 
teacher cannot fail to yield satisfactory results." 



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Curries Early Education. 

" The Principles and Practice of Early and Infant School 
Education." By James Currie, A. M., Prin. Church of 
Scotland Training College, Edinburgh. Author of 
" Common School Education," etc. With an introduction 
by Clarence E. Meleney, A. M., Supt. Schools, Paterson, 
N. J. Bound in blue cloth, gold, 16mo, 290 pp. Price, 
$1.25 ; to teachers, $i.oo ; by mail, 8 cents extra. 

WHY THIS BOOK IS VALUABLE. 

1. Pestalozzi gave New England its educational supremacy. 
The Pestalozzian wave struck this country more than forty 

years ago, and produced a mighty shock. It set New Eng- 
land to thinking. Horace Mann became eloquent to help on 
the change, and went up and down Massachusetts, urging in 
earnest tones the change proposed by the Swiss educator. 
What gave New England its educational supremacy was its 
reception of Pestalozzi's doctrines. Page, Philbrick, Barnard 
were all his disciples. 

2. It is the work of one of the best expounders of Pes- 
talozzi. 

Forty years ago there was an upheaval in education. Pes- 
talozzi's words were acting like yeast upon educators ; thou- 
sands had been to visit his schools at Yverdun, and on their 
return to their own lands had reported the wonderful scenes 
they had witnessed. Rev. James Currie comprehended the 
movement, and sought to introduce it. Grasping the ideas of 
this great teacher, he spread them in Scotland ; but that 
country was not elastic and receptive. Still, Mr. Currie's 
presentation of them wrought a great change, and he is to be 
reckoned as the most powerful exponent of the new ideas in 
Scotland. Hence this book, which contains them, must be 
considered as a treasure by the educator. 

3. This volume is really a Manual of Principles of Teaching. 
It exhibits enough of the principles to make the teacher 

intelligent in her practice. Most manuals give details, but no 
foundation principles. The first part lays a psychological 
basis— the only one there is for the teacher ; and this is done 
in a simple and concise way. He declares emphatically that 
teaching cannot be learned empirically. That is, that one can- 
not watch a teacher and see how he does it, and then, imitat- 
ing, claim to be a teacher. The principles must be learned. 

4. It is a Manual of Practice in Teaching. 



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It discusses the subjects of Number, Object Lessons, Color, 
Form, Geography, Singing, and Reading in a most intelligent 
manner. There is a world of valuable suggestions here for 
the teacher. 

5. It points out the characteristics of Lesson-Giving — or 
Good Teaching. 

The language of the teacher, the tone of voice, the question- 
ing needed, the sympathy with the class, the cheerfulness 
needed, the patience, the self-possession, the animation, the 
decorum, the discipline, are all discussed, This latter term is 
denned, and it needs to be, for most teachers use it to cover 
all reasons for doing — it is for " discipline " they do every- 
thing. 

6. It discusses the motives to be used in teaching. 

Any one who can throw light here will be listened to ; Mr. 
Currie has done this admirably. He puts (1) Activity, (2) 
Love, (3) Social Relation, as the three main motives. Rewards 
and Punishments, Bribery, etc., are here well treated. The 
author was evidently a man " ahead of his times :" every- 
where we see the spirit of a humane man ; he is a lover of 
children, a student of childhood, a deep thinker on subjects 
that seem very easy to the pretentious pedagogue. 

7. The book has an admirable introduction, 

By Supt. Meleney, of Paterson, N. J., a disciple of the New 
Education, and one of the most promising of the new style of 
educators that are coming to the front in these days. Taking- 
it all together, it is a volume that well deserves wonderful 
popularity. 

Adopted by the Chautauqua Teachers' Reading Union. 

Philadelphia Teacher.—" It is a volume that every primary teacher 
should study. 1 ' 

Boston Common School Education.—" It will prove a great boon to 
thousands of earnest teachers." 

Virginia Educational Journal.—" Mr. Currie has long been esteemed 
by educators." 

Central School Journal.—" Books like this cannot but hasten the 
day for a better valuation of childhood." 

North Carolina School Teacher.— " An interesting and timely book." 



FOR READING CIRCLES. 

" Payne's Lectures " is pre-eminently the book for Reading 
Circles. It has already been adopted by the New York, Ohio, 
Philadelphia, New Jersey, Illinois, Colorado, and Chautauqua 
Circles, besides many in counties and cities. Remember that 
our edition is far superior to any other published. 



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Shauds m Rational Question Book 

" The National Question Book." A graded course of study 
for those preparing to teach. By Edward E. Shaw, Prin- 
cipal of the High School, Yonkers, N. Y.; author of 
1 ' School Devices," etc. Bound in durable English buckram 
cloth, with beautiful side-stamp. 12mo, 350 pp. Price, 
$1.50 ; net to teachers, postpaid. 

This work contains 6,000 Questions and Answers on 22 
Different Branches of Study. 

ITS DISTINGUISHING FEATURES. 

1. It aims to make the teacher a better teacher. 

"How to Make Teaching a Profession" has challenged the 
attention of the wisest teacher. It is plain that to accomplish 
this the teacher must pass from the stage of a knowledge of 
the rudiments, to the stage of somewhat extensive acquire- 
ment. There are steps in this movement ; if a teacher will 
take the first and see what the next is, he will probably go on 
to the next, and so on. One of the reasons why there has 
been no movement forward by those who have made this first 
step, is that there was nothing marked out as a second step. 

2. This book will show the teacher how to go forward. 

In the preface the course of 

study usually pursued in our 
best normal schools is given. 
This proposes four grades ; 
third, second, first, and profes- 
sional. Then, questions are 
given appropriate for each of 
these grades. Answers follow 
each section. A teacher will 
use the book somewhat as fol- 
lows : — If he is in the third 
grade he will put the questions 
found in this book concerning 
numbers, geography, history, 
grammar, orthography, and 
theory and practice of teaching 
to hi m self and get out the 
answer. Having done this he 
will go on to the other grades 
in a similar manner. In this 
way he will know as to his fit- 
ness to pass an examination for 




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these grades. The selection of questions is a good one. 

3. It proposes questions concerning teaching itself. 

The need of studying the Art of Teaching is becoming more 
and more apparent. There are questions that will prove very- 
suggestive and valuable on the Theory and Practice of Educa- 
tion. 

4. It is a general review of the common school and higher 
studies. 

Each department of questions is followed by department of 
answers on same subject, each question being numbered, and 
answer having corresponding number. 



English Literature, 1st grade. 

Natural Philosophy, " 

Algebra, professional grade. 

General History, profess, grade. 

Geometry, 

Latin, 

Zoology, 

Astronomy, 

Botany, 

Physics, 

Chemistry, 

Geology, 



Arithmetic, 3d grade. 
Geography, 2d and 3d grade. 
U. S. History, 2d and 3d grade. 
Grammar, 1st, 2d, and 3d grade. 
Orthography and Orthoepy,3d grade. 
Theory and Practice of Teaching, 

1st, 2d, and 3d grade. 
Rhetoric and Composition, 2d grade, 
Physiology, 1st and 2d grade. 
Bookkeeping, 1st and 2d grade. 
Civil Government, 1st and 2d grade. 
Physical Geography, 1st grade. 

5. It is carefully graded into grades corresponding to those 
into which teachers are usually classed. 

It is important for a teacher to know what are appropriate 
questions to ask a third grade teacher, for example. Exam- 
iners of teachers, too, need to know what are appropriate 
questions. In fact, to put the examination of the teacher into 
a proper system is most important. 

6. Again, this book broadens the field, and will advance 
education. The second grade teacher, for example, is exam- 
ined in rhetoric and composition, physiology, book-keeping, 
and civil government, subjects usually omitted. The teacher 
who follows this book faithfully will become as near as possi- 
ble a normal school graduate. It is really a contribution to 
pedagogic progress. It points out to the teacher a road to 
■professional fitness. 

7. It is a useful reference work for every teacher and priv- 
ate library. 

Every teacher needs a book to turn to for questions, for 
example, a history class. Time is precious ; he gives a pupil 
the book saying, " Write five of those questions on the black- 
board ; the class may bring in answers to-morrow." A book, 



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made on the broad principles this is, has numerous uses. 

8. Examiners of teachers will find it especially valuable. 
It represents the standard required in New York and the East 
generally for third, second, first, and state diploma grades. 
It will tend to make a uniform standard throughout the 
United States. 

WHAT IS SAID OF IT. 

A Great Help.— "It seems to be well adapted to the purposes lor 
which it is prepared. It will undoubtedly be a great help to many- 
teachers who are preparing to pass an examination."— E. A. Gastman, 
Supt. Schools, Decatur, 111. 

Very Suggestive.—" I consider it very suggestive. As a book for 
class-room use it can serve a very important object by this suggestive- 
ness, which is the peculiar quality of the book. Many of the questions 
suggest others to the teacher, and thus open her mind to new aspects of 
the book she is teaching. Such questions aid pupils in looking up mat- 
ter which they have previously acquired, and yet supply the charm of 
novelty."— B. C. Gregory, Secretary of N. J. Reading Circle. 

Helpful to Young Teachers.—" It will prove a helpful book to young 
teachers who wish to review the studies which it treats."— T. M. Bal- 
liet, Supt. Schools, Springfield, Mass. 

Well Fitted for its Purpose.— " I find it well fitted for its purpose in 
testing the acquaintance of students with the principles that govern the 
several departments of science and their application to special cases. I 
can see how a teacher can make good use of this book in his classes."— 
D. L. Kiehle, Supt. of Public Instruction, St. Paul, Minn. 

Without a Peer.—" It is without a peer."— J. M. Greenwood, Supt. 
Schools, Kansas City, Mo. 

Best for its Price,—" It is the best book for its .price that I ever pur- 
' chased."— Miss Eva Quigley, teacher at La Porte, Cal. 

Best of the Kind.—" It is decidedly the best book of the kind I ever 
examined."— D. G Williams, Ex-Co. Supt. Tork County, Pa. 

Will Furnish Valuable Ideas.— "It presents a larger variety than 
usual of solid questions. Will repay very largely all efforts put forth 
by examiners and examined, and lead to better work in the several 
branches. The questions have been carefully studied. They are the 
result of thoughtful experience, and will furnish valuable ideas."— Chas. 
Jacobus, Supt. Schools, New Brunswick. N. J. 

J. H. Hoose, Prin. of the Cortland (N. T.) Normal School, says :— " It 
will be helpful to those persons who cannot enjoy an attendence upon 
courses of study in some good school." 

Hon. B. G. Korthrup, of Connecticut, says:— "It is at once concise 
and comprehensive, stimu ati-g and instructive. These questions seem 
to show the young teacher what he d es not know) and ought to know, 
and facilitates the acquisition of the desired knowledge." 

School Education (Minn.) says:— "Many a young teacher of good 
mind, whose opportunities have been meagre, and who does not yet 
know how to study effectively in a scientific spirit, may be stimulated 
to look up points, and to genuine progress in self -improvement by such 
a book as this. The questions are systematically arranged, worded with 
judgment, and are accompanied by numerous analyses of various sub- 
jects." 



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• Taynes Lectures on the Science and 

Art of Education. Reading Circle Edition. By Joseph 
Payne, the first Professor of the Science and Art of Edu- 
cation in the College of Preceptors, London, England. 
With portrait. 16mo, 350 pp., English cloth, with gold 
back stamp. Price; $1.00 ; to teachers, 80 cents ; by mail, 
7 cents extra. Elegant new edition from new plates. 

Teachers who are seeking to 
know the principles of education 
will find them clearly set forth in 
this volume. It must be remem- 
bered that principles are the basis 
upon which all methods of teach- 
ing must be founded. So valu- 
able is this book that if a teacher 
were to decide to own but three 
works on education, this would 
be one of them. This edition 
contains all of Mr. Payne's writ- 
ings that are in any other Ameri- 
can abridged edition, and is the 
only one with his portrait. It is 
far superior to any other edition 
published. 
Joseph Payne. 

why.this Edition is the best. 

(l.).The side-titles. These give the contents of the page. 
(2.) The analysis of each lecture, with reference to the educa- 
tional points in it. (3.) The general analysis pointing out the 
three great principles found at the beginning. (4.) The index, 
where, under such heads as Teaching, Education, The Child, 
the important utterances of Mr. Payne are set forth. (5.) 
Its handy shape, large type, fine paper, and press-work and 
tasteful binding. All of these features make this a most val- 
uable book. To obtain all these features in one edition, it 
was found necessary to get out this new edition. 

Ohio Educational Monthly.— "It does not deal with shadowy theories ; 
it is intensely practical." 

Philadelphia Educational News.—" Ought to be in library of every 
progressive teacher." 

Educational Courant.— " To know how to teach, more is needed than 
a knowledge of the branches taught, This is especially valuable." 

Pennsylvania Journal of Education.— "Will foe of practical value to 
Normal Schools and Institutes." 




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Shaw and TfonneU's School Devices. 

"School Devices." A book of ways and suggestions for 
teachers. By Edward R. Shaw and Webb Donnell, of the 
High School at Yonkers, N. Y. Illustrated. Dark-blue 
cloth binding, gold, 16mo, 224 pp. Price, $1.25 ; to teach- 
ers, $1.00 ; by mail, 9 cents extra. 
i^~A BOOK OF "WAYS" FOR TEACHERS.^ 
Teaching is an art ; there are " ways to do it." This book 
is made to point out " ways," and to help by suggestions. 

1. It gives " ways " for teaching Language, Grammar, Read- 
ing, Spelling, Geographv, etc. These are in many cases 
novel ; they are designed to help attract the attention of the 

2. The " ways" given are not the questionable " ways" so 
often seen practiced in school-rooms, but are in accord with 
the spirit of modern educational ideas. 

3. This book will afford practical assistance to teachers who 
wish to keep their work from degenerating into mere routine. 
It gives them, in convenient form for constant use at the 
desk, a multitude of new ways in which to present old truths. 
The great enemy of the teacher is want of interest. Their 
methods do not attract attention. There is no teaching 
unless there is attention. The teacher is too apt to think 
there is but one " way "of teaching spelling; he thus falls 
into a rut. Now there are many " ways " of teaching spell- 
ing, and some " ways " are better than others. Variety must 
exist in the school-room ; the authors of this volume deserve 
the thanks of the teachers for pointing out methods of obtain- 
ing variety without sacrificing the great end sought— scholar- 
ship. New "ways" induce greater effort, and renewal of 
activity. m ■ 

4. The book gives the result of large actual experience in 
the school-room, and will meet the needs of thousands of 
teachers, by placing at their command that for which visits 
to other schools are made, institutes and associations 
attended, viz., new ideas and fresh and forceful ways of 
teaching. The devices given under Drawing and Physiology 
are of an eminently practical nature, and cannot fail to 
invest these subjects with new interest. The attempt has 
been made to present only devices of a practical character. 

5. The book suggests " ways " to make teaching effective ; it 
is not simply a book of new " ways," but of " ways " that will 
produce good results. 



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12 E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

WHAT IT CONTAINS. 

"Ways" of teaching Language— Geography— Spelling— "Reading- 
Arithmetic — History — Physiology — Drawing— Penmanship— Personal 
Suggestions— School-Room Suggestions— Outside the School-Room— 
Seat Work. The first chapter on Language contains : A Way to Prepare 
Pictures for Young Pupils— Supplying the Proper Word— A Language 
Lesson— Weekly Plan of Language Work for Lower Grammar Grades- 
Writing Ordinals— Correcting Bad English— For Beginners in Composi- 
tion—Word Developing— An Easy Exercise in Composition— Composi- 
tion from Pictures— Plan for Oral Composition— Debating Exercises— 
Language Drill in every Lesson— Letter Writing— Matter for Letters - 
Forms for Business Letters— Papers Written from Recitation Notes- 
Equivalent Forms of Expression— Devices for "U>e of Capitals —Excerpts 
to Write Out from Memory— Regular Plan in Composition Writing— To 
Exercise the Imagination — Suggestions about Local Subjects for Com- 
positions—A Letter Written upon the Blackboard by all the Class- 
Choice of Words— Order of Criticism— A Plan for Rapid Correction of 
Compositions— To File and Hold Essays— Assigning a Subject for a Com- 
position— Character Sketches— Illustrative Syntax— A Talk on Language 
— A Grammar Lesson, Device for Building up the Conjugation of the 
Verb— The Infinitive Mood— Shall and Will— Matter for a Talk on Words 
— Surnames. 

At the end of the volume is inserted a careful selection of Bible Read- 
ings for every school day of the year, with the pronunciation of diffi- 
cult words— a provision that will be appreciated by those who are 
obliged to hunt each morning for a proper selection for school devo- 
tions. 

Mr. E. E. Shaw, of the Yonkers High School, is well 
known, and Mr. Webb Donnell, of the East Machias (Me.) 
Academy, is a teacher of fine promise ; they have put together 
a great variety of suggestions that cannot fail to be of real 
service. 

Home and School.—" Is just the book for every teacher who wishes 
to be a better teacher." 
Educational Journal.—" It contains many valuable hints." 

Boston Journal of Education.—" It is the most humane, instructive, 
original educational work we have read in many a day." 

Wis. Journal of Education.—" Commends itself at once by the num- 
ber of ingenious devices for securing order, industry, and interest." 

Iowa Central School Journal.—" Teachers will find it a helpful and 
suggestive book." 

Canada Educational Monthly.— " Valuable advice and useful sugges- 
tions." 

Normal Teacher.—" The author believes the way to manage is to civ- 
ilize, cultivate, and refine." 

School Moderator.—" Contains a large amount of valuable reading. 
School government is admirably presented." 

Progressive Teacher.— " Should occupy an honored place in every 
teacher's library." 

Ed. Courant.— " It will help the teacher greatly." 

Va. Ed. Journal.— "The author draws from a large experience." 

Country and Village Schools.—" Cannot fail to be serviceable." 



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E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 13 

Parkers Talks on Teaching. 

Notes of " Talks on Teaching" given by Col. Francis W. 
Parker (formerly Superintendent of schools of Quincy, 
Mass.), before the Martha's Vineyard Institute, Summer 
of 1882. Reported by Lelia E. Patridge. Square 16mo, 
5x6 1-2 inches, 192 pp., laid paper, English cloth. Price, 
$1.25 ; to teachers, $1.00 ; by mail, 9 cents extra. 
The methods of teaching employed in the schools of Quincy, 
Mass., were seen to be the methods of nature. ^ As they were 
copied and explained, they awoke a great desire on the part 
of those who could not visit the schools to know the underly- 
ing principles. In other words, Colonel Parker was asked to 
explain why he had his teachers teach thus. In the summer 
of 1882, in response to requests, Colonel Parker gave a course 
of lectures before the Martha's Vineyard Institute, and these 
were reported by Miss Patridge, and published in this book. 

The book became famous ; 
more copies were sold of it in 
the same time than of any 
other educational book what- 
ever. The daily papers, which 
usually pass by such books 
with a mere mention, devoted 
columns to reviews of it. 

The following points will 
show why the teacher will 
want this book. 

1. It explains the " New 
Methods." There is a wide 
gulf between the new and the 
old education. Even school 
boards understand this. 

2. It gives the underlying 
principles of education. For it 

must be remembered that Col. Parker is not expounding his 
methods, but the methods of nature. 

3. It gives the ideas of a man who is evidently an " educa- 
tional genius," a man born to understand and expound educa- 
tion. We have few such ; they are worth everything to the 
human race. 

4. It gives a biography of Col. Parker. This will help the 
teacher of education to comprehend the man and his motives. 

5. It has been adopted by nearly every State Reading Circle. 




SEND AT/I, ORDERS TO 

14 E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

The Indiana State Reading Circle alone have ordered 1500 
copies. Besides this, many County Reading Circles have 
adopted it. 

6. The new methods placed "the Quincy schools from 
twelve to twenty-five per cent, above the average of the towns 
in the same county." (This county is Norfolk — the one that 
Boston is in.) This is the statement of George A. Walton, of 
the Massachusetts Board of Education. 

7. The Quincy methods (according to Mr. George A. Wal- 
ton) are adopted wherever they are known, and where the 
teachers have the skill and permission to employ them. 

8. This book has created more interest in Europe than any 
other American book on education. 

Normal Teacher. (Ind.)— " Probably no volume will attract the atten- 
tion of the teachers of this country so much as this." 

Journal of Education (Va.)— "No teacher can read it without receiv- 
ing fresh ideas." 

The New England Journal of Education (July 12, '83), published 
a page criticism by Prof. Payne. When this met the eye of Rev. A. D. 
Moyes, one of the editors, he wrote two pages of fervid approval and 
that influential paper became the friend of the New Education. " We 
recommend the book to every teacher." 

New York Teachers' Companion.— " The Colonel is a warrior: his 
battle cry is freedom of the teachers from ruts, rust, routine, and 
servile imitation." 

Philadelphia Teacher— " His greatness consists in his courageous 
application of the truth." 

Chicago Advance— " They (the 'talks') will be very helpful to 
teachers." 

Chicago Evening Journal.—" They constitute the best, most compre- 
hensivefand authoritative presentation of the Quincy schools." 

Chicago Daily News.— " Valuable materials for thought and study." 

Burlington Hawkeye.— "We are pleased with the common sense 
and reasonableness of any principle laid down and methods recom- 
mended." 

Boston Commonwealth.—" Are of interest to all teachers." 

Troy Times.—" They are hints on which the intelligence of the teacher 
is left free to act." 

New York Trihune— " Suggestive to instructors. The clear direc- 
tions for following the methods so brilliantly inaugurated at Quincy 
will be of interest to all students of pedagogy. ' ' 

Philadelphia Ledger.— " Francis W. Parker holds what in some re- 
gards, is even a higher place than that of the Chief Executive, the great- 
est teacher and organizer of the common schools that this country now 
possesses." (From along review.) 

Philadelphia B,eeord — 'His talk is informal by knowledge; and his 
knowledge is booked by experience." 

The Moderator. 'Michigan.)— In spite of all that has been published 
they constitute the best presentation of the Quincy method.' ' 



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lb E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

Patridge s. " Quincy [Methods!' 

The " Quincy Methods," illustrated ; Pen photographs from 
the Quincy schools. By Lelia E. Patridge. Illustrated 
with a number of engravings, and two colored plates. 
Blue cloth, gilt, 12mo, 686 pp. Price, $1.75 ; to teachers, 
$1.40 ; by mail, 13 cents extra. 
When the schools of Quincy, Mass., became so famous 
under the superintendence of Col. Francis W. Parker, thou- 
sands of teachers visited them. Quincy became a sort of 
"educational Mecca," to the disgust of the routinists, whose 
schools were passed by. Those who went to study the 
methods pursued there were called on to tell what they had 
seen. Miss Patridge was one of those who visited the schools 
of Quincy ; in the Pennsylvania Institutes (many of which 
she conducted), she found the teachers were never tired of 
being told how things were done in Quincy. She revisited 
the schools several times, and wrote down what she saw ; then 
the book was made. 

1. This book presents the actual practice in the schools of 
Quincy. It is composed of " pen photographs." 

2. It gives abundant reasons for the great stir produced by 
the two words " Quincy Methods." There are reasons for the 
discussion that has been going on among the teachers of late 
years. 

3. It gives an insight to principles underlying real educa- 
tion as distinguished from book learning. 

4. It shows the teacher not only what to do, but gives the 
way in which to do it. 

5. It impresses one with the spirit of the Quincy schools. 

6. It shows the teacher how to create an atmosphere of hap- 
piness, of busy work, and of progress. 

7. It shows the teacher how not to waste her time in worry- 
ing over disorder. 

8. It tells how to treat pupils with courtesy, and get cour- 
tesy back again. 

9. It presents four years of work, considering Number, 
Color, Direction, Dimension, Botany, Minerals, Form, Lan- 
guage, Writing, Pictures, Modelling, Drawing, Singing, 
Geography, Zoology, etc., etc. 

10. There are 686 pages; a large book devoted to the realities 
of school life, in realistic descriptive language. It is plain, 
real, not abstruse and uninteresting. 

11. It gives an insight into real education, the education 
urged by Pestalozzi, Froebel, Mann, Page, Parker, etc. 



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E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 17 

12. It exemplifies the teachings of Col. F. W. Parker in the 
" Talks on Teaching." It must be remembered that the 
"Talks" were from the notes taken by Miss Patridge, the 
author of this book. To understand what the teaching is that 
Col. Parker would have in the schools, one must read this 
book, or attend his school at Normal Park, 111. 

Pa. School Journal :~" The book will be of historical significance." 
N. Y. School Bulletin :— "Should be one of the first dozen books in the 
teacher's library." Boston Journal of Education :— " Affords a clear 
insight into the methods and work at Quincy." Iowa Teacher :— " The 
best of it is that the underlying principles are explained." Chicago 
Practical Teacher :— " Miss Patridge has done her work thoroughly and 
well." N. C. Teacher :— " The story of the Quincy method is well told." 
La. School Journal :— " The work ought to be in every public school 
library." Chicago Intelligence :— " It is really a manual for the prim- 
ary teacher." Teachers' Quarterly :— " Beautifully told in this vol- 
ume." Cincinnati School Journal :— " The book explains the underly- 
ing principles." S. W. Journal of Education :— "Miss Patridge has done 
the work excellently well." Indiana School Eulletin :— " Pull of good 
suggestions." Pa. Teacher :— " No teacher can read it without receiv- 
ing ideas and helpful suggestions." Pa. School Journal :— " This book 
has a mission." Nat. (Pa.) Educator :— " Every progressive teacher will 
get more benefit from it than from any other published." Our County 
and Village Schools :—" Reading this volume will produce a revolu- 
tion." Ed. Courant :— " Has the power, fervor, and style of Parker." 
Wis. Journal of Education :—" By far the most complete manual of the 
'New Education." 111. School Journal:— "It is without question the 
fullest, richest, and most suggestive volume for grade teachers, and 
also for superintendents, that it has been our portion to examine." 
Normal Exponent :—" Every teacher should read it." W. Ya. School 
Journal :—" It is a fountain from which new and refreshing draughts 
may be drawn." Philadelphia Teacher :—" Abounds with hints; will 
prove a precious guide." Chicago Advance :— " In the presence of such 
a book we pause with reverence." School Education :—" Is a very 
desirable book." Phrenological Journal :— " It is the application of 
principles." Christian Advocate :—" Well worth the perusual of 
teachers." Texas School Journal :— " No primary teacher can afford to 
do without this work." Springfield Kepublican :— " The earnest teach- 
er will find it helpful." Quebec Ed. Eecord :— " Pleased that it is on the 
list of books for teachers." The Critic :— " Gives a helpful insight into 
the theory of Education." Interior :— " Well worthy of study." Inter- 
ocean :— " One of the books that should be found in every teacher's 
desk." Detroit Free Press:— Will take a high place in educational 
literature." S. S. Times :—" First and best for the Sunday school 
teacher is Quincy Methods." 



SEND ALL ORDERS TO 

18 E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

Tate's Vhilosophy of Education. 

The Philosophy of Education. By T. Tate. Revised and 
Annotated by E. E. Sheeb, Ph.D., Principal of the Louis- 
iana State Normal School. Unique cloth binding, laid 
paper, 831 pp. Price, $1.50 ; to teachers, $1.20 ; by mail, 7 
cents extra. 
There are few books that deal with the Science of Educa- 
tion. This volume is the work of a man who said there were 
great principles at the bottom of the work of the despised 
schoolmaster. It has set many a teacher to thinking, and in 
its new form will set many more. 

Our edition will be found far superior to any other in every 
respect. The annotations of Mr. Sheib are invaluable. The 
more important part of the book are emphasized by leading 
the type. The type is clear, the size convenient, and print- 
ing, paper, and binding are most excellent. 

Mr. Philbrickso long superintendent of the Boston schools hold this 
work in high esteem. 

Col. F. W. Parker strongly recommends it. 

Jos. MacAlister, Supt. Public Schools, Philadelphia, says :— "It is one 
of the first books which a teacher deserves of understanding the scien- 
tific principles on which his work rests should study." 

S. A. Ellis, Supt. of Schools, Rochester N. Y. says :— " As a pointed and 
judicious statement of principles it has no superior." 

Thos. M. Balliet, Supt. of Schools* Reading. Pa., says :— " The work 
is a classic on Education." 

J. M. Greenwood, Supt. Schools, Kansas City, says :— " I wish every 
teacher of our country owned a copy and would read it carefully and 
thoughtfully." 

Prest. E. A. Sheldon, Oswego Normal Schools, says :— " For more 
than 20 years it has been our text-book in this subject and I know of no 
other book so good for the purpose." 

Bridgeport Standard.—" A new generation of thinkers will welcome 
it ; it has long held the first place in the field of labor which it illus- 
trates." 

S. W, Journal of Education.— "It deals with fundamental principles 
and shows how the best educational practice comes from them." 

The Interior.— " The book has long been held in high esteem by 
thoughtful teachers." 

Popular Educator.— "Has long held a high place among educational 
works." 

Illinois School Journal.—" It abounds in good things." 

Philadelphia Record.—" Has been ranked among educational classics 
for more tfian a quarter of a century." 

Educational News.—" Tate was the first to give us the maxims from 
the ' known to the unknown ' etc." 



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E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 21 



The Reading Circle Library. 



No. 




no-j- ^$M 



HlNDiTUDIES 

4= OR 

D YoUNG TEACHER^ 



1 . Allen's Mind Studies for Young Teachers 

By Jerome Allen, Ph.D., 
Associate Editor of the 
School Journal, formerly 
President of the St. Cloud 
( Minn. ) Normal School. 
16mo, large, clear type, 
128 pp. paper cover. Price, 
30 cents ; to teachers, 24 
cents ; by mail, 3 cents 
extra. Limp cloth, 50 
cents ; to teachers, 40 cents; 
by mail, 5 cents extra. 
Special rates for quanti- 
ties. Fourth thousand now 
ready. 

This little volume attempts 
to open the subject of Psychol- 
ogy in a plain way, omitting 
what is abstruse and difficult. 
It is written in language easily 
comprehended, and has prac- 
tical illustrations. It will be wanted by teachers. 

1. Some knowledge of Mental Science is indispensible to the 
teacher. He is dealing with Perception, Attention, Judg- 
ment. He ought to know what these mean. 

2. The relation between Teaching and Mind Growth is 
pointed out ; it is not a dry treatise on Psychology. 

3. It is a work that will aid the teacher in his daily work in 
dealing with mental facts and states. 

Popular Educator.—" The teacher will find in it much information as 
well as incitement to thought.'" 

Jared Sanford, School Com., Mt. Vernon, N. Y — " From all points of 
view it must prove of great worth to those who read it. To the earnest 
teacher in search of information concerning the principles of Psychol- 
ogy it is to be highly commended." 

Irwin Shepard, Pres. Normal School. Winona, Minn.—" I am much 
pleased with it. It certainly fills a want. Most teachers need a smaller 
briefer, bnd more convenient Manual than has before been issued." 

S. G. Love, Supt. School, N. Y.— "I want to say of it that it is an 
excellent little book. Invaluable for building up the young teacher 
in that kind of knowledge indispensable to successful teaching to-day." 

Prof. Edward Brooks.— " The work will be very useful to young 
teachers." 




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23 E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

No. 2. Autobiography of Froebel. 

Materials to Aid a Comprehension of the Works of the 
Founder of the Kindergarten. l6mo, large, clear type, 
128 pp. Unique paper cover. Price, 30 cents ; to 
teachers, 24 cents ; by mail, 3 cents extra. Bound in limp 
cloth, 50 cents ; to teachers, 40 cents ; by mail, 5 cents 
extra. 

This little volume will be welcomed by all who want to get 
a good idea of Froebel and the kindergarten. 

1. The dates connected with 
Froebel and the kindergarten 
are given, then follows his 
autobiography. To this is 
added Joseph Payne's esti- 
mate and portrayal of Froe- 
bel, as well as a summary of 
Froebel's own views. 

2. In this volume the stu- 
dent of education finds ma- 
terials for constructing, in an 
intelligent manner an estimate 
and comprehension of the kin- 
dergarten. The lif e of Froebel, 
mainly by his own hand, is 
very helpful. In this we see 
the working of his mind when 
a youth ; he lets us see how 
he felt at being misunder- 
stood, at being called a bad boy, and his pleasure when face 
to face with nature. Gradually we see there was crystallizing 
in him a comprehension of the means that would bring har- 
mony and peace to the minds of young people. 

3. The analysis of the powers of Froebel will be of great 
aid. We see that there was a deep philosophy in this plain 
German man ; he was studying out a plan by which the 
usually wasted years of young children could be made pro- 
ductive. The volume will be of great value not only to every 
kindergartner, but to all who wish to understand the philoso- 
phy of mental development. 

La. Journal of Education.— "An excellent little work.' 

W. Va. School Journal.—" Will be of great value." 

Educational Courant, Ky— " Ought to have a very extensive circu- 
lation among the teachers of the country." 

Educational Record, Can.—" Ought to be in the hands of every pro- 
fessional teacher." 




FRIEDRICH FR03BEL. 



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E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK <& CHICAGO. 




JAMES L. HUGHES. 



No. 3. Hughes' Mistakes in Teaching. 

By James L. Hughes, Inspec- 
tor of Schools, Toronto,Can- 
ada. Cloth, 16mo, 115 pp. 
Price, 50 cents ; to teach- 
ers, 40 cents ; by mail, 5 
cents extra. 
Thousands of copies of the old 
edition have been sold. The 
new edition is worth double the 
old ; the material has been in- 
creased, restated and greatly 
improved. Two new and im- 
portant Chapters have been 
added on " Mistakes in Aims," 
and " Mistakes in Moral Train- 
ing." Mr. Hughes says in his 
preface : "In issuing a revised 
edition of this book it seems 
fitting to acknowledge grate- 
fully the hearty appreciation 
that has been accorded it by 
American teachers. Eealizing as I do that its very large sale 
indicates that it has been of service to many of my fellow 
teachers, I have recognized the duty of enlarging and revis- 
ing it so as to make it still more helpful in preventing the 
common mistakes in teaching and training." 

Ninety-Six important mistakes are corrected in this 
book. This is the only edition authorized by the writer. 

The Schoolmaster (England)— "His ideas are clearly presented." 

Boston Journal of Education.—" Mr. Hughes evidences a thorough 
study of the philosophy of education. We advise every teacher to invest 
50 cents in the purchase of this useful volume." 

New York School Journal.—" It will help any teacher to read this 
hook." 

Chicago Educational Weekly.—" Only long experience could fur- 
nish the author so fully with materials for sound advice." 

Fenn. Teacher's Advocate.— "It is the most readable book we have 
seen lately." 

Educational Journal of Virginia.—" We know no book that contains 
so many valuable suggestions.*' 

Ohio Educational Monthly.—" It contains more practical hints than 
any book of its size known to us. 1 ' 

Iowa Central School Journal.—" We know of no book containing 
more valuable suggestions." 

Hew York School Bulletin—" It is sensible and practical." 



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24 E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 

No. 4. Hughes' Securing and Retaining Atten- 
tion. 

By James L. Hughes, Inspector Schools, Toronto, Canada. 
Author of Mistakes in Teaching. Cloth, 116 pp. Price, 
50 cents ; to teachers, 40 cents ; by mail, 5 cents extra. 

This valuable little book has already become widely known 
to American teachers. This new edition has been almost 
entirely re-written and several new important chapters 
added. It is the only edition authorized by the author. The 
testimonials to the old edition are more than deserved for the 
new one. 

Educational Times. England.— " On an important subject, and 

admirably executed." 
School Guardian. England.—' 4 We unhesitatingly recommend it." 
New England Journal of Education.—" The book is a guide and a 

manual of special value." 
New York School Journal.—" Every teacher would derive benefit 

from reading this volume." 

Chicago Educational Weekly.— " The teacher who aims at best suc- 
cess should study it." 
Phil. Teacher.—" Many who have spent months in the school-room 

would be benefitted by it." 
Maryland School Journal.—" Always clear, never tedious." 
Va. Ed. Journal.—" Excellent hints as to securing attention." 
Ohio Educational Monthly.—" We advise readers to send for a copy." 
Pacific Home and School Journal.— " An excellent little manual." 
Prest. James H. Hoose, State Normal School, Cortland, N. Y., says :— 

" The book must prove of great benefit to the profession. " 
Supt. A. W. Edson, Jersey, City, N. J., says:— "A good treatise has 

long been needed, and Mr. Hughes has supplied the want." 

No. 5. The Student's Calendar. 

For 1888. Compiled by N. O. Wilhelm. Elegant design 
on heavy cardboard, 9x11 inches, printed in gold and 
color. Price, 60 cts. ; to teachers, 48 cents. ; by mail, 8 cts. 
In book form, for any year, paper cover. Price, 30 cts. ; 
to teachers, 24 cts. ; by mail, 3 cts. extra. 

This beautiful, novel, and useful calendar is designed to 
assist teachers in preparing exercises for Memorial Days, 
and also to suggest topics for "talks," compositions, etc. The 
idea is entirely new. Opposite each date is a very short life 
of some great man who was born or died on that day. The 
design is superb, and printing, etc., tasteful and elegant, 
making it an ornament for any room. 



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E. L. KELLOGG <fc CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 25 



Teachers' Manuals Series. 

Each is printed in large, 
clear type, on good paper. 
Paper cover, price 15 
cents; to teachers, 12 
cents ; by mail 1 cent ex- 
tra. Liberal discount in 
quantities. 
There is a need of small 
volumes — "Educational 
tracts," that teachers can 
carry easily and study as they 
have opportunity. The fol- 
lowing six have been already 
selected. Every one is a gem. 
To call them the " Education- 
al Gem" series would be 
more appropriate. 

It should be noted that 
while our editions of these 
little books are as low in 
price as any other, the side 
heads, topics and analyses 
inserted by the editors, as well as the excellent paper and 
printing, make them far superior in every way to any other. 

No. 1. FITCH'S ART OF QUESTIONING:. 

By J. G. Fitch, M. A., author of " Lectures on Teaching." 38 pp. 

Already widely known as the most useful and practical essay on 
this most important part of the teachers' lesson-hearing. 
No. 2. FITCH'S ART OF SECURING ATTENTION. 

By J. G. Fitch, M. A., 39 pp. 

Of no less value than the author's "Art of Questioning." 
No. 3. SIDGWICK'S ON STIMULUS IN SCHOOL. 

By Arthur Sedgwick, M. A. 43 pp. 

" How can that dull, lazy scholar be pressed on to work up his lessons 
with a will." This bright essay will tell how it can be done. 
No. 4. YONGE'S PRACTICAL WORK IN SCHOOL. 

By Charlotte M. Yonge, author of " Heir of Redely fle." 35 pp. 

All who have read Miss Yonge's books will be glad to read of her 
views on School Work. 
No. 5. FITCH'S IMPROVEMENT LN THE ART OF TEACHING. 

By J. G. Fitch, M. A. 25 pp. 

This thoughtful, earnest essay will bring courage and help to many 
a teacher who is struggling to do better work. It includes a course of 
study for Teachers' Training Classes. 
No. 6. GLADSTONE'S OBJECT TEACHING. 

By J. H. Gladstone, of the London 'Eng.) School Board. 25 pp. 

A short manual full of practical siiggestions on Object Teaching. 




